A Telepresence Robot in Residential Care: Family Increasingly Present, Personnel Worried About Privacy

Elderly people moving into assisted living facilities often face profound changes in their daily routines and social relationships, which may lead to feelings of social isolation and even to depression. Telepresence robots can alleviate this by enabling easily accessible virtual presence of family members and other close ones at the ward. Telepresence robots have been tested in different care environments with often positive responses, but there are still challenges, both technical and non-technical, that hinder the wider adoption of the robots in residential care settings. We seek for more understanding of the non-technical challenges by studying the use of a telepresence robot Double in a residential care facility. In a 12-week field trial, we installed a telepresence robot in a room of a long-term care home resident for communicating with her family members. The qualitative interview data included the perspectives of the resident, her family members and care workers at the ward. The results confirm the potential of telepresence robots in assisted living in order to increase the presence of family members to the resident and vice versa; the study also provides insight about how the increased presence of family members may affect the care work.