Collaborative Research: NRI: Remotely Operated Reconfigurable Walker Robots for Eldercare

在美国死于新冠肺炎的人中，超过80%的人年龄在65岁或以上，其中许多人是疗养院的居民和工作人员，因为目前的面对面老年人护理做法在这些设施中导致了大量集群感染病例。大流行还严重影响了来访护士、家庭护理、日间护理和其他亲身护理服务，结果是许多老年人被孤立，与更广泛的社区很少或根本没有互动，这往往会导致精神和心理障碍。由于目前的护理做法和制度已被证明是如此脆弱，如果可以通过其他方式补充面对面的老年护理，那些需要这种服务的人将得到更好的服务。该项目探索了一种基于远程医疗和机器人技术的替代远程护理方法，旨在通过人员和设备网络在个人家庭和机构中安全地提供高质量的护理服务。行动能力是老年人必须保留的基本功能，才能独立生活，但行动援助需要物理互动，目前依赖于面对面的护理。这项研究将开发一种多功能、可重构的移动辅助机器人，由护理人员和临床工作人员远程操作和监督，他们可以通过机器人系统与用户进行交流，工作包括三个方面：机器人能够在必要时改变足迹，使其能够穿过狭窄的门道，并在杂乱的居住环境中工作，同时在日常活动中提供无缝支持，如运输和从坐到站的转换；保护平衡下降的用户免受摔倒的能力，这种摔倒可能会导致通过改变不可靠的配置而在地板上受到重击；以及在以安全和吸引人的方式执行与老年人的物理交互方面为远程照顾者提供帮助，因为大多数物理辅助程序需要来自照顾者的合作态度，并且与循环中的远程照顾者一起，机器人可以监视用户的行为和精神状态，并引导他们通过辅助程序，以便他们可以更好地参与并变得合作。人体主体测试将在康复医院进行，以在现实环境中演示和验证新技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Over 80% of people who have died of COVID-19 in the United States were of age 65 or older, and many of them were nursing home residents and staff, because current in-person eldercare practices caused numerous cluster infection cases in these facilities. The pandemic has also severely impacted visiting nurses, home care, day care, and other in-person eldercare services, and as a result many seniors have been left isolated with little or no interaction with the broader community, which often leads to mental and psychological disorders. Because current nursing practices and systems have proven to be so vulnerable, those in need of such services would be better served if in-person eldercare could be supplemented by other means. This project explores an alternative remote-nursing approach based on tele-medicine and robotic technologies, which aims to deliver quality care services safely in individual homes and institutions through a network of people and equipment.Mobility is a fundamental function that elderly people must retain to live independently, but mobility assistance requires physical interactions and is currently dependent on in-person care. This research will develop a multi-functional, reconfigurable, mobility-assistance robot that is operated and supervised remotely by caregivers and clinical staff who can communicate with the user through the robotic system, the work to include three thrusts: the ability of the robot to alter its footprint when necessary to enable it to fit through narrow doorways and work in cluttered residential environments while providing seamless support in daily activities such as transportation and sit-to-stand transition; the ability to protect a user with declining balance issues from falls that might result in taking a hard hit on a floor by changing to an untippable configuration; and providing remote caregivers with help in executing physical interactions with older adults in a safe and engaging manner, because most physical assistance procedures entail a cooperative attitude from the care recipient and with a remote caregiver in the loop the robot can monitor the behavior and mental state of the user and guide them through the assistive procedure so that they may be better engaged and become cooperative. Human subject tests will be conducted at a rehabilitation hospital to demonstrate and verify the new technology in a realistic setting.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.