Good Practices Overview | Basque Country | Czech Republic | Norrbotten | Puglia | Scotland
MARIO – Managing active and healthy ageing with use of caring service robots
Summary of the good practice:
MARIO addresses the difficult challenges of loneliness, isolation and dementia in older persons through innovative and multi-faceted inventions delivered by service robots. The effects of these conditions are severe and life-limiting. They burden individuals and societal support systems. Human intervention is costly but the severity can be prevented and/or mitigated by simple changes in self-perception and brain stimulation mediated by robots. From this unique combination, clear advances are made in the use of semantic data analytics, personal interaction, and unique applications tailored to better connect older persons to their care providers, community, own social circle and also to their personal interests. Each objective is developed with a focus on loneliness, isolation and dementia. The impact centres on deep progress toward EU scientific and market leadership in service robots and a user driven solution for this major societal challenge. The competitive advantage is the ability to treat tough challenges appropriately. In addition, a clear path has been developed on how to bring MARIO solutions to the end users through market deployment.
URL: www.mario-project.eu
Challenge addressed by the good practice
- Addressing the multi-factorial problems linked to loneliness, isolation and dementia in the elderly through interventions delivered by service robots
- To assist caregivers and physicians in the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) of subjects with a high risk of loneliness, in our specific pilot site they are hospitalized patients affected by dementia at its first stage
- To use near state of the art robotic platforms that are flexible, modular, accepted by the users and sustainable from a cost point of view
- To bring service robotics out of the lab and into healthcare practice
Key innovative elements of the good practice
Performing CGA is a time-consuming process that traditionally involves healthcare professionals who deliver it, in best case scenarios, at hospital admission and at discharge. The key innovative element from a clinical point of view is the possibility that the robot could perform non-obtrusive measurements of activities of daily living (like bathing, toileting, feeding, dressing, urine and bowel continence, and transferring). It will also ease to assess patient independence in eight activities that are more cognitively and physically demanding like managing finances, taking medications, using the telephone, shopping, using transportation, preparing meals, doing housework, and washing. It could also ease to assess the cognitive status.
Full Scirocco information on the good practice
SciroccoGP-Puglia-1-MARIO.pdf [PDF]
Publications and reports on the good practice
n/a
Contact point: Francesco Giuliani; f.giuliani@operapadrepio.it