In gadget-loving Japan, robots get hugs in therapy sessions

OHBU, Japan -- The elderly patients suffer from severe dementia, but their faces light up when they see the dog-shaped robot, swaddled in soft clothing, waddle around the hospital floor. Some clap; others break into feeble smiles. Urged by nurses, a few cautiously reach out and touch it.

"It's cute," one female patient cries out.

This is one in a budding series of robot-therapy sessions at Japanese hospitals and senior citizens' homes. To some scientists, robots are the answer to caring for aging societies in Japan and other nations where the young are destined to be overwhelmed by a surging elderly population.

These advocates see robots serving not just as helpers -- carrying out simple chores and reminding patients to take their medication -- but also as companions, even if the machines can carry on only a semblance of a real dialogue.

The ideal results: huge savings in medical costs, reduced burdens on family and caretakers, and old and sick people kept in better health.

"This technology is really needed for the global community," said Russell Bodoff, executive director at the Center for Aging Services Technologies in Washington, D.C. "If you look 30 years out, we have what I would call a global crisis in front of us: that we will have many more aging people than we could ever deal with."

Japan leads the world in research on such "partner" robots. But the fledgling offerings often fail to address real-life needs -- partly because their creators don't fully appreciate what kinds of robots appeal to the elderly and the sick, experts say.

And while proponents say robot therapy is no different from pet therapy, in which animals offer companionship, the idea of children and older people becoming emotionally attached to machines unnerves many people.

"There is always a role that must be carried out by human beings," says Kimika Usui, professor of gerontologic nursing at Osaka Prefecture College of Nursing. "It is critical that a person interacts one on one and talks to that patient. Just playing music or turning on the TV does not really get their response."

To many minds, we are at the dawn of the age of robotics. Microelectronic advances are cramming greater computing power and functionality into smaller spaces, creating machinery that was impossible or cost-prohibitive even a few years ago.

Over the past several years, Japanese companies including Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp., have welded together some dazzling robots.

But those self-propelled thinking machines have tended to be used to boost corporate images and define techno-chic -- mimicking mammalian expressiveness and flaunting such gimmicks as trumpet-playing -- rather than being anything close to a caretaker. The home robots now available are generally little more than entertainment devices.

That makes little sense to scientists bent on fielding "helping" robots at hospitals and elderly care centers.

"So far it appears that most companies are just slapping together whatever technology they have," said Takanori Shibata, creator of Paro, a furry robot that looks like a baby seal and is especially designed for therapy.

Shibata spent $9 million developing Paro, which blinks and waves its arms but is stationary. He is planning a commercial model this year for about $2,800. The robot is getting rave reviews in experimental robot therapy sessions not only in Japan but also in the United States, Italy and Sweden.

Toshiyo Tamura, professor at the National Institute for Longevity Sciences, has also experimented with pet-like robots for stimulating and comforting elderly patients. He uses Sony's four-legged Aibo, which appears to most humans like a cute canine. Although Aibos lack sophisticated programming, people respond well to the robot's simple moves, Tamura said.

The patients with dementia at the hospital in Ohbu, central Japan, suffer from significant memory lapses. They can't remember their names, faces of family, everyday things such as the difference between food and dirt. Some are prone to wandering at night.

Finding that the patients favor fuzzy and huggable items, Tamura dressed the metallic Aibo in soft clothing. He'd like to give the robot additional features, such as the ability to monitor a patient's blood pressure or body temperature.

Tamura and colleagues recently published research that found that some patients' activity, such as talking, watching and touching, increased with the introduction of the robot in therapy sessions.

"Playing with the robots reduces problem behavior, and they gain a certain peace of mind," Tamura said in a recent interview at his laboratory, where he showed videotapes of the robot therapy sessions.

Tamura also found that introducing a stuffed animal shaped like a dog got almost the same effect from patients.

But a stuffed animal can't be programmed to, for example, help an Alzheimer's patient remember the names of their visiting children. Neither, of course, can real animals.

Tamura and other proponents of robot therapy say it makes more sense to use machines: They are more sanitary. They don't bite or cause allergies. There's no need to feed them anything more than power.

But how robots will change people remains to be seen. Will robots make people lazy if they can do mundane chores? Will they make us more callous or more humane?

John Jordan, a principal at consulting company Cap Gemini who has studied how technology shapes human expectations, believes it's inevitable that robots will provoke in people the same strong feelings that video games, movies and cars elicit.

Ranges of appropriate behavior toward robots will have to be socially defined, Jordan said. Might it be weird to pat a robot for bringing a drink?

"Humans are very good at attributing emotions to things that are not people," Jordan said. "Many, many moral questions will arise."

Emotional attachments

Japan, with its tradition of seeing spirits in inanimate things from rocks to yes, robots, so far has shrugged off ethical questions about substituting human contact with machines.

"Of course, it's best if human beings can deal with human beings," said Masahiro Mori, honorary professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and longtime advocate of robot-making contests for teenagers. "But Japanese thought stresses harmony and does not tend to see confrontational situations. The idea that robots may be a potential enemy just doesn't exist in Japan."

Still, can people grow too fond of robots for their own good? Yasuyuki Toki, a researcher at NEC System Technologies, thinks emotional attachments to robots must be studied carefully.

NEC's talking robot on wheels was once lent to a family for research. When the robot had to be taken away for an upgrade, the elementary school-aged child cried so much that the family refused to take the machine again.

"People aren't going to be able to throw away robots even when they break," Toki said. "These are major issues that researchers must keep in the back of our minds."

Ryuhei Kimura, associate professor at Teikyo University of Science & Technology, who leads robot sessions for children at a hospital in the Tokyo suburb of Hachioji, would like to see future robot research deal more with ways the machines can reduce people's mental stress than with issues such as artificial intelligence.

"These children here are locked up in their beds all day and lack stimulation," Kimura said. "Communication is the most important element."

In a recent session in Hachioji, a 1-year-old boy who has never left the hospital after being born with a lung problem looked pleased playing with the robots -- mostly Aibo dogs that cocked their heads, shuffled on the floor chasing a ball and made electronic purring noises.

The boy tried to stand.

Another child, 11-year-old Ayumi Yokozeki has a hand injury but enjoyed playing with an Aibo, getting it to handle a ball.

"It's fun," she said. "I draw pictures, too, but I love this the most."