Robotic pets provide companionship to Minnesota seniors: ‘Kitty is there’
Schmidt’s Kitty is a robotic pet, one of a new breed of electronic cats and dogs that can pant, yawn, whine and wag; some even have an audible heartbeat. They have been designed specifically for older people, especially those with Alzheimer’s disease or...
East Bay hospice care uses robotic animals to comfort lonely patients
DUBLIN — To help ward off some of the isolation and loneliness elderly dementia patients in hospice care have been experiencing during the pandemic, workers at one organization have come up with a creative idea: robotic animals to bring them comfort. READ...
Aging Well: Maui, Kauai counties give out robotic pets to ease depression
WAILUKU, Hawaii – Robotic pets being a great substitute for pet-loving seniors who can’t take care of a pet any longer. Maui and Kauai Counties gave hundreds of them away to low-income seniors in January. READ...
Savvy Senior: Robotic pets could help isolated seniors avoid loneliness
In 2018, the New York State Office for the Aging was the first state in the U.S. to test the robotic pets with isolated seniors and results showed that using pets to lower social isolation was highly successful, with 70% of pilot participants reporting a decrease in...
What Robots Can—and Can’t—Do for the Old and Lonely
Virginia Kellner got the cat last November, around her ninety-second birthday, and now it’s always nearby. It keeps her company as she moves, bent over her walker, from the couch to the bathroom and back again. The walker has a pair of orange scissors hanging from the...