Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Acceptance of Healthcare Robots for the Older Population: Review and Future Directions

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The rapidly ageing population is placing increasing strain on healthcare services. Robots have been proposed as a way to assist people to stay healthy and safe in their own homes. However, despite the need for such assistive devices and the success of some healthcare robots, other robots have had a poor response. This article reviews the literature about human responses to healthcare robots and summarises the variables that have been found to influence responses. It may be possible to increase acceptance of healthcare robots by properly assessing the needs of the human user and then matching the robot’s role, appearance and behaviour to these needs. Because robots have limitations in their abilities, another way to increase acceptance may be to modify the expectations of users to better match robots’ abilities. More research needs to investigate potential users’ needs and expectations in specific situations and whether interventions to increase the match between robot and human can increase acceptance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. United Nations (2006) World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision. United Nations, New York

  2. Super N (2002) Who will be there to care? The growing gap between caregiver supply and demand. In: National Health Policy Forum, George Washington University, Washington DC

  3. Murray MK (2002) The nursing shortage: past, present, and future. J Nurs Admin 32:79–84

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Ichbiah D (2005) Robots: from science fiction to technological revolution. Harry N Abrams, New York

    Google Scholar 

  5. Howe RD, Matsuoka Y (1999) Robotics for surgery. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 1:211–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Krebs HI, Palazzolo JJ, Dipietro L, Ferraro M, Krol J, Rannekleiv K, Volpe BT, Hogan N (2003) Rehabilitation robotics: performance-based progressive robot-assisted therapy. Auton Robots 15:7–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Tejima N (2001) Rehabilitation robotics: a review. Adv Robot 14:551–564

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Matarić MJ, Eriksson J, Feil-Seifer DJ, Winstein CJ (2007) Socially assistive robotics for post-stroke rehabilitation. J Neuroengineering Rehabil 4:5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Kidd CD, Breazeal C (2006) Sociable robot systems for weight maintenance. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE consumer communications and networking conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, pp 253–257

  10. Hou C, Jia S, Takase K (2003) Real-time multimedia applications in a web-based robotic telecare system. J Intell Robot Syst 38:135–153

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Tinker A, Lansley P (2005) Introducing assistive technology into the existing homes of older people: feasibility, acceptability, costs and outcomes. J Telemed Telecare 11:1–3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Scopelliti M, Giuliani MV, Fornara F (2005) Robots in a domestic setting: a psychological approach. Univers Access Inf Soc 4:146–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Foulk E (2007) Lonely robots ignored by elderly ludites. In: The New Zealand Herald available from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10465061, Visited Sept 21st, 2007

  14. Sparrow R, Sparrow L (2006) In the hands of machines? The future of aged care. Mind Mach 16:141–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lachs MS, Pillemer K (1995) Abuse and neglect of elderly persons. New Engl J Med 7:437–443

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Homer AC, Gilleard C (1991) Abuse of elderly people by their carers. Br Med J 9:1359–1362

    Google Scholar 

  17. Heerink M, Krose B, Evers V, Wielinga B (2006) The influence of a robot’s social abilities on acceptance by elderly users. In: Proceedings of the 15th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN 06, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, pp 521–526

  18. Kulviwat S, Bruner GC, Kumar A, Nasco SA, Clark T (2007) Toward a unified theory of consumer acceptance technology. Psychol Market 24:1059–1084

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Pollack ME, Engberg S, Matthews JT, Thrun S, Brown L, Colbry D, Orosz C, Peintner B, Ramakrishnan S, Dunbar-Jacob J, McCarthy C, Montemerlo M, Pineau J, Roy N (2002) Pearl: a mobile robotic assistant for the elderly. AAAI Workshop on Automation as Eldercare, Edmonton, Canada

  20. Pineau J, Montemerlo M, Pollack M, Roy N, Thrun S (2003) Towards robotic assistants in nursing homes: challenges and results. Robot Auton Syst 42:271–281

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Dario P, Guglielmelli E, Laschi C, Teti G (1999) MOVAID: a personal robot in everyday life of disabled and elderly people. Technol Disabil 10:77–93

    Google Scholar 

  22. Graf B, Hans M, Schraft RD (2004) Care-O-bot II—development of a next generation robotic home assistant. Auton Robots 16:193–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Noury N (2005) AILISA: Experimental platforms to evaluate remote care and assistive technologies in gerontology. In: Proceedings of 7th international workshop on enterprise networking and computing in healthcare industry HEALTHCOM 2005, Busan, Korea, pp 67–72

  24. Mukai T, Onishi M, Odashima T, Hirano S, Zhiwei L (2008) Development of the tactile sensor system of a human-interactive robot “RI-MAN”. IEEE Trans Robot 24:505–512

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Stiehl WD, Lieberman J, Breazeal C, Basel L, Cooper R, Knight H, Lalla L, Maymin A, Purchase S (2006) The huggable: a therapeutic robotic companion for relational, affective touch. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE consumer communications and networking conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, pp 1290–1291

  26. Tamura T, Yonemitsu S, Itoh A, Oikawa D, Kawakami A, Higashi Y, Fujimooto T, Nakajima K (2004) Is an entertainment robot useful in the care of elderly people with severe dementia? J Gerontol Biol Med Sci 59:M83–M85

    Google Scholar 

  27. Banks MR, Willoughby LM, Banks WA (2008) Animal-assisted therapy and loneliness in nursing homes: use of robotic versus living dogs. J Am Med Dir Assoc 9:173–177

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Wada K, Shibata T, Musha T, Kimura S (2005) Effects of robot therapy for demented patients evaluated by EEG. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Edmonton, Canada, pp 1552–1557

  29. Onishi K (2006) Wakamaru, the robot for your home. J Jpn Soc Mech Eng 109:448–449

    Google Scholar 

  30. Forlizzi J, DiSalvo C, Gemperle F (2004) Assistive robotics and an ecology of elders living independently in their homes. Hum Comput Interact 19:25–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Krikke J (2003) Japan’s robot developers go Linux. LinuxInsider. Retrieved from http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/32281.html, Visited March 12th, 2008

  32. Belew B (2007) Japan’s Ifbot understands language and emotional tone, gets rejected. Rising Sun of Nihon. Retrieved from http://www.today.com/external.php?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RisingSunofNihon/~3/159099003/japans_ifbot_understands_langu.html&reffurl=http://www.today.com/view/japan-s-ifbot-understands-language-and-emotional-tone-gets-rejected/id-453613/, Visited Sept 20th, 2008

  33. Arras KO, Cerqui D (2005) Do we want to share our lives and bodies with robots? A 2000 people survey. Technical Report Nr. 0605-001, Autonomous Systems Lab, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) 2005

  34. Giulini MV, Scopelliti M, Fornara F (2005) Elderly people at home: Technological help in everyday activities. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE international workshop on robots and human interactive communication, Nashville, TN, pp 365–370

  35. Czaja SJ, Sharit J (1998) Age differences in attitudes towards computers. J Gerontol 53:329–340

    Google Scholar 

  36. Libin AV, Libin EV (2004) Person-robot interactions from the robopsychologists point of view: the robotic psychology and robotherapy approach. Proc IEEE 92:1789–1803

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Pain H, Gale CR, Watson C, Cox V, Cooper C, Sayer A (2007) Readiness of elders to use assistive devices to maintain their independence in the home. Age Ageing 36:465–467

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Brebner JA, Brebner EM, Ruddick-Bracken H (2005) Experienced-based guidelines for the implementation of telemedicine services. J Telemed Telecare 11:3–5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Kobb R, Hilsen P, Ryan P (2003) Assessing technology needs for the elderly: finding the perfect match for home. Home Healthc Nurse 21:666–673

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Cesta A, Cortellessa G, Giuliani MV, Pecora F, Scopelliti M, Tiberio L (2007) Psychological implications of domestic assistive technology for the elderly. Psycho Oncol 5:229–252

    Google Scholar 

  41. Forlizzi J (2007) How robotic products become social products: an ethnographic study of cleaning in the home. In: Proceedings of the 2007 ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction, Virginia, USA, pp 129–136

  42. Mutlu B, Osman S, Forlizzi F, Hodgins J, Kiesler S (2006) Task structure and user attributes as elements of human-robot interaction design. In: Proceedings of the 15th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN06, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, pp 74–79

  43. Taggart W, Turkle S, Kidd CD (2005) An interactive robot in a nursing home: preliminary remarks. In: Proceedings of toward social mechanisms of android science, a cognitive science society workshop, Stresa, Italy, 2005, pp 56–61

  44. Shiabata T, Wada K, Ikeda Y, Sabanovic S (2009) Cross-cultural studies on subjective evaluation of a seal robot. Adv Robot 23:443–458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Siino RM, Hinds PJ (2005) Robots, gender & sensemaking: sex segregation’s impact on workers making sense of a mobile autonomous robot. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, Barcelona, pp 2773–2778

  46. Nomura T, Kanda T, Suzuki T, Kato K (2008) Prediction of human behavior in human–robot interaction using psychological scales for anxiety and negative attitudes toward robots. IEEE Trans Robot 24:442–451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Dijkers MI, deBear PC, Erlandson RF, Kristy K, Geer DM, Nichols A (1991) Patient and staff acceptance of robotic technology in occupational therapy: a pilot study. J Rehabil Res Dev 28:33–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Forlizzi J (2005) Robotic products to assist the aging population. Inter Actions 12:16–18

    Google Scholar 

  49. Koay KL, Syrdal DS, Walters ML, Dautenhahn K (2007) Living with robots: investigating the habituation effect in participants’ preferences during a longitudinal human-robot interaction study. In: Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN, Jeju Island, Korea, 2007, pp 564–569

  50. Wada K, Shibata T (2007) Robot therapy in a care house—change of relationship among the residents and seal robot during a 2-month long study. In: Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN, Jeju Island, Korea, 2007, pp 107–112

  51. Derose JJ, Balaram SK, Ro C, Swistel DG, Singh V, Wilentz JR, Todd GJ, Ashton RC (2005) Mid-term results and patient perceptions of robotically-assisted coronary artery bypass grafting. Interact Cardiovasc Thorac Surg 4:406–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Bartneck C, Suzuki T, Kanda T, Nomura T (2006) The influence of people’s culture and prior experiences with Aibo on their attitude towards robots. AI Soc 21:217–230

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Nomura T, Suzuki T, Kanda T, Han J, Shin N, Burke J, Kato K (2008). What people assume about humanoid and animal-type robots: cross-cultural analysis between Japan, Korea, and the USA. Int J Humanoid Robot 5:25–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Wasen K (2005) Person-friendly robot interaction: social, psychological and technical impacts in health care work. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE international workshop on robots and human interactive communication, Nashville, TN, pp 643–648

  55. Novek J, Bettes S, Burke K, Johnston P (2000) Nurses’ perceptions of the reliability of an automated medication dispensing system. J Nurs Care Qual 14:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  56. Saito T, Shibata T, Wada K, Tanie K (2003) Relationship between interaction with the mental commit robot and change of stress reaction of the elderly. In: Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE international symposium on computational intelligence and automation, Kobe, Japan, pp 119–124

  57. Heerink M, Kröse B, Wielinga B, Evers V (2008) Enjoyment intention to use and actual use of a conversational robot by elderly people. In: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on human robot interaction, Amsterdam, 2008, pp 113–120

  58. Khan Z (1998). Attitudes towards intelligent service robots. Technical Report No TRITA-NA-P9821, NADA, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

  59. Hirsch T, Forlizzi J, Hyder E, Goetz J, Stroback J, Kurtz C (2000) The Elder project: social and emotional factors in design of eldercare technologies. In: Proceedings on the 2000 conference on universal usability, Arlington, VA, pp 72–79

  60. Powers A, Kiesler S (2006) The advisor robot: Tracing people’s mental model from a robot’s physical attributes. In: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCHI/SIGART conference on human-robot interaction, Salt Lake City, pp 218–225

  61. Breazeal C (2000b) Sociable machines: expressive social exchange between humans and robots. Doctor of Science Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. Retrieved from http://groups.csail.mit.edu/lbr/hrg/2000/phd.pdf Visited Dec 8th 2008

  62. Mori M (1970) Bukimi no tani (the uncanny valley). Energy 7:33–35

    Google Scholar 

  63. Oestreicher L (2007) Cognitive, social, sociable or just socially acceptable robots? In: Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN, Jeju Island, Korea, 2007, pp 558–563

  64. Robins B, Otero N, Ferrari E, Dautenhahn K (2007) Eliciting requirements for a robotic toy for children with autism—results from user panels. In: Proceedings from the 16th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication RO-MAN, Jeju Island, Korea, 2007, pp 101–106

  65. Robins B, Dautenhahn K, te Boekhorst R, Billard A (2004) Robots as assistive technology—does appearance matter? In: Proceedings from the 13th IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication ro-man, Okayama Japan, 2004, pp 277–282

  66. Hinds PJ, Roberts TL, Jones H (2004) Whose job is it anyway? A study of human-robot interaction in a collaborative task. Hum Comput Interact 19:151–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Breazeal C (2000a) Regulation and entrainment in human-robot interaction. Lect Notes Control Inform Sci, Exp Robot VII 271:61–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Ekman P (1999) Facial expressions. In Dalgleish T, Power T (eds) (1999) The handbook of cognition and emotion, pp 301–320. Wiley, New York

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  69. Han J, Lee J, Cho Y (2005) Evolutionary role model and basic emotions of service robots originated from computers. In: Proceedings from the 2005 IEEE international workshop on robots and human interactive communication, Nashville, TN, pp 30–35

  70. Blow MP, Dautenhahn K, Appleby A, Nehaniv CL, Lee DC (2006) Perception of robot smiles and dimensions for human-robot interaction design. In: Proceedings of the 2006 15th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, pp 469–474

  71. Powers A, Kramer ADI, Lim S, Kuo J, Lee S, Kiesler S (2005) Eliciting information from people with a gendered humanoid robot. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE international workshop on robots and human interactive communication, Nashville, TN, pp 158–163

  72. Tapus A, Matraric M (2006) User personality matching with hands-off robot for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy. In: Proceedings of the international symposium on experimental robotics (ISER), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  73. de Ruyter B, Saini P, Markopoulos P, van Breemen A (2005) Assessing the effects of building social intelligence in a robotic interface for the home. Interact Comput 17:522–541

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Bickmore TW, Picard RW (2004) Towards caring machines. In: CHI’04 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems, pp 1489–1492

  75. Goetz J, Kiesler S (2002) Cooperation with a robotic assistant. In: Proceedings of conference on human factors in computing systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota, pp 578–579

  76. Tapus A, Tapus C, Mataric MJ (2007). Hands-off therapist robot behavior adaptation to user personality for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy. In: IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp 1547–1553

  77. Qing-hua L, Meng MQH, Tao M (2005). Robotic pet based interactive home healthcare system. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME international conference on advanced intelligent mechatronics, pp 771–776

  78. Fleming KC, Evans JM, Weber DC, Chutka DS (1995) Practical functional assessment of elderly persons: a primary-care approach. Mayo Clin Proc 70:890–910

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Fiel-Seifer D, Skinner K, Mataric MJ (2007) Benchmarks for evaluating socially assistive robotics. Interact Stud 8:423–429

    Google Scholar 

  80. Gandsas A, Parekh M, Bleech M (2007) Robotic telepresence: profit analysis in reducing length of stay after laproscopic gastric bypass. J Am Coll Surg 205:72–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  81. Ellison LM, Pinto PA, Kim F, Ong AM, Patriciu A, Stoianovici D, Rubin H, Jarrett T, Kavoussi LR (2004) Telerounding and patient satisfaction after surgery. J Am Coll Surg 199:523–530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Libin AV, Libin EV (2003) New diagnostic tool for robotic psychology and robotherapy studies. Cyberpsychol Behav 6:369–374

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. Bartneck C, Kulic D, Croft E, Zoghbi S (2009) Measurement instruments for the anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence and perceived safety of robots. Int J Soc Robot 1:71–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  84. Horvath A, Greenberg L (1989) Development and validation of the working alliance inventory. J Couns Psychol 36:223–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  85. Ickes W, Bissonnette V, Garcia S, Stinson LL (1990) Implementing and using the dyadic interaction system. In: Hendrick C, Clark MS (eds) Research methods in personality and social psychology. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 16–44

    Google Scholar 

  86. Broadbent E, MacDonald B, Jago L, Juergens M, Mazharullah O (2007) Human reactions to good and bad robots. In: Proceedings of the 2007 IEE/RSJ  international conference on intelligent robots and systems, San Diego, California, pp 3703–3708

  87. Plaisant C, Druin A, Lathan C, Dakhane K, Edwards K, Vice JM (2000) A story telling robot for pediatric rehabilitation. In: Proceedings of the 4th International ACM conference on assistive technologies, Arlington, Virginia, pp 50–55

  88. Sun H, Zhang P (2006) The role of moderating factors in user technology acceptance. Int J Hum Comput Stud 64:53–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Young JE, Hawkins R, Sharlin E, Igarashi T (2009) Toward acceptable domestic robots: applying insights from social psychology. Int J Soc Robot 1:95–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    E. Broadbent & R. Stafford

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    B. MacDonald

Authors
  1. E. Broadbent
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R. Stafford
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. B. MacDonald
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. Broadbent.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Broadbent, E., Stafford, R. & MacDonald, B. Acceptance of Healthcare Robots for the Older Population: Review and Future Directions. Int J of Soc Robotics 1, 319–330 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-009-0030-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-009-0030-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation