Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri compared a 16 kilos dog named 'Sparky' with AIBO, a robot dog unnatural look to see how residents responded three U.S. nursing homes.
"The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally in terms of alleviating loneliness and make residents develop bonds of attachment," said Dr. William Banks, professor of geriatric medicine and one of the auteores the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. " Banks
ensures that pets have been shown to alleviate the sense of isolation of the elderly.
"really reduce significantly loneliness," says the doctor.
But many seniors are too weak to care for a pet or had to give up their own animals when they entered the asylum. "They throw very much concerned that bond," says Banks.
So Banks and colleagues decided to test whether a dog can also offer something false comfort. Three groups
The researchers studied 38 nursing home residents, which divided into three groups. One had regular visits from Banks' pet, 'Sparky' ('Spark'), another received visits of robot "AIBO" manufactured by Sony, which uses some artificial intelligence algorithms to interact with their environment and express emotion.
The third group received no visits from any dog. Banks
that, initially, I was sure that 'Sparky' had the advantage. But to his surprise, both dogs provided virtually the same comfort after seven weeks of visits.
Although the manufacture of AIBO has been discontinued, Banks thinks similar robots could offer that company to the elderly and could even be programmed to monitor their owners, alerting emergency services in case of a fall or accident.
"Loneliness is common in nursing homes. The robots could be very useful for people who, for whatever reason, can not access a live dog," concluded Banks.
"The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally in terms of alleviating loneliness and make residents develop bonds of attachment," said Dr. William Banks, professor of geriatric medicine and one of the auteores the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. " Banks
ensures that pets have been shown to alleviate the sense of isolation of the elderly.
"really reduce significantly loneliness," says the doctor.
But many seniors are too weak to care for a pet or had to give up their own animals when they entered the asylum. "They throw very much concerned that bond," says Banks.
So Banks and colleagues decided to test whether a dog can also offer something false comfort. Three groups
The researchers studied 38 nursing home residents, which divided into three groups. One had regular visits from Banks' pet, 'Sparky' ('Spark'), another received visits of robot "AIBO" manufactured by Sony, which uses some artificial intelligence algorithms to interact with their environment and express emotion.
The third group received no visits from any dog. Banks
that, initially, I was sure that 'Sparky' had the advantage. But to his surprise, both dogs provided virtually the same comfort after seven weeks of visits.
Although the manufacture of AIBO has been discontinued, Banks thinks similar robots could offer that company to the elderly and could even be programmed to monitor their owners, alerting emergency services in case of a fall or accident.
"Loneliness is common in nursing homes. The robots could be very useful for people who, for whatever reason, can not access a live dog," concluded Banks.
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