Robot therapy at facilities for the elderly in Kanagawa prefecture - A report on the experimental result of the first week

Robot therapy is expected to have psychological, physiological, and social effects similar to those of animal therapy. The therapeutic seal robot, PARO, is used in various facilities for the elderly, and its use spreading throughout the world. In previous studies, the effects of PARO were examined by various types of tests. However, the number of subjects in those studies was low. In this study, PARO was introduced in 10 facilities for the elderly, and 83 elderly individuals interacted with it under "the Nursing-care Robot Promotion Project" sponsored by Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. This paper reports the results of this experiment during the first week.