So-called “socially-assistive" healthcare robots, developed by researchers from Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, were recently trialed in a hospital in Paris, France, where they interacted with elderly patients.

The Heriot-Watt University's National Robotarium Socially Assistive Robots in Gerontological Healthcare (SPRING) trial was conducted at the Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris where experiments were enabled by large language models, which allowed the robots to have natural conversations with the patients.

Source: Heriot-Watt University

The researchers revealed that the robots greeted patients, answered questions and provided directions, thereby reducing the workload for staff members in the hospital and increasing their productivity. Further, the robots proved to simultaneously comprehend multi-party conversations and managed to follow dialogue among many individuals.

In addition to interacting with patients, the robots also performed repetitive tasks, thereby limiting the amount of physical contact between clinicians and patients, thus promising to potentially lower the risk of infection transmission.

Hospital personnel also reported that their patients showed increasing interest in robotics during the trial and suggested that the robots could one day serve as companions for patients with cognitive disorders.