EAGER: CHS: Collaborative Research: Analyzing Elder Care to Guide the Design of Caregiver Robots

扩大老年人护理的可获得性和降低老年人护理费用的一种方法是增加能够在自己的家中独立生活的老年人的数量，这被称为“就地老龄化”。这是一个有吸引力的选择，因为老年人更喜欢独立生活，当他们这样做时，他们报告说他们的健康和生活质量更好，而且因为适当的老龄化可以减少老年人日益增加的医疗保健费用。然而，老龄化仍然需要照顾者，而照顾者供不应求。为正在老龄化的老年人扩大照顾者的可获得性的一种方法是开发可以在这些家庭中充当照顾者的机器人。研究已经表明，许多老年人对这种可能性持开放态度，特别是如果它允许他们保持独立的话。此外，许多老年人报告说，对于许多任务，他们实际上更愿意得到机器人的帮助，而不是另一个人。就像人类照顾者的情况一样，机器人照顾者将被卷入一个更大的复杂的社交网络和技术系统中，而不仅仅是照顾者和被照顾者。为了让机器人护理员成功地提供所需的护理，需要了解这一更大的背景，例如知道要联系谁，以及如果他们正在帮助的人没有遵循他或她的通常行为模式，使用什么信息。这个项目将探索和描述照看机器人应该如何发挥作用，通过分析老人之家目前的照看形式，通过创建当前老年人护理实践的详细说明，并将这种描述转化为照看机器人的设计建议。分析将首先描述当前和未来照看系统的复杂社会技术背景，特别是人类或机器人照顾者的工作功能和工作领域。功功能的描述将独立于谁或什么将执行这些功能。工作领域将使用各种技术进行分析，例如抽象-分解空间(ADS)和上下文活动图(ConAD)。ADS将在几个不同的抽象级别上映射家庭的总体目标和物理资源之间的关系，例如通过将提供安全物理环境的目标映射到可用于协助转移的不同资源。ConADS将不同的工作职能与不同的工作情况联系起来，例如通过将药物的给药与一天中适当的时间和家中的适当地点联系起来。基于这些工作功能和工作领域的分析，该项目将起草、完善和验证护理机器人设计要求的正式描述。

One approach to expanding the availability of elder care and reducing elder care costs is to increase the number of elders who can live independently in their own homes which is referred to as "aging in place". This is an attractive option because elders prefer to live independently and report better health and quality of life when they do, and because aging in place can reduce the increasing costs of elder health care. However, aging in place still requires caregivers, and caregivers are in short supply. One approach to expanding the availability of caregivers for elders who are aging in place is to develop robots that can serve as caregivers in these homes. Research already suggests that many elders are open to this possibility, especially if it allows them to retain their independence. Furthermore, many elders report that for many tasks they would actually prefer to be helped by a robot rather than another human. As is the case for human caregivers, robot caregivers will be enmeshed in a larger complex social network and technical system beyond just the caregivers and the person who is being cared for. This larger context will need to be understood in order for robotic caregivers to successfully deliver the care that is needed, such as to know who to contact and with what information if the person that they are assisting is not following his or her usual patterns of behavior. This project will explore and describe how caregiving robots should function by analyzing the current form of caregiving in elders' homes, by creating a detailed account of current elder care practices, and by translating this account into design recommendations for caregiving robots.The analysis will begin by describing the complex socio-technical context of current and future caregiving systems, specifically in terms of the work function and the work domain of the human or robot caregiver. Work function will be described independently of who or what will perform those functions. Work domain will be analyzed using a variety of techniques such as Abstraction-Decomposition Spaces (ADSs) and Contextual Activity Diagrams (ConADs). ADSs will map the relationships between a home's overall objectives and physical resources at several different levels of abstraction, such as by mapping the objective of providing a safe physical environment to different resources that are available to assist with transfers. ConADs will relate different work functions to different work situations, such as by relating the administration of medications to the appropriate time of day and location in the home. Based on these analyses of work function and work domain, the project will draft, refine, and validate formal descriptions of design requirements for caregiving robots.