Robotics in nursing care

More transparency in the human-robot interaction

“We want to give tangible form to the societal dimension of technology,” says Ruth Müller, a professor of science and technology policy. “The important thing is to identify potential effects of innovative technologies during the development process.” In the context of ‘Robotics in care’, robots can provide support with everyday work. However, their use can also fundamentally change important nursing care routines. That is why it is essential to integrate the perspectives of those providing care into the development process. “The goal is for robots to support nursing staff in their work and expertise – not to replace them,” says Prof. Müller, who sees robotics as a flexible technology, the social consequences of which “will depend on many decisions and the weighting of values during the development process.”

A technology that has emerged from this interdisciplinary approach is the data recorder for the GARMI nursing care robot from the Geriatronics Research Center of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI). The recorder logs and virtualizes the entire care process: “We record all interactions with the robot to understand exactly what happened in case of an accident. This documentation is enormously important, especially with the vulnerable demographics such as the elderly and persons with physical and intellectual disabilities that we deal with,” says STS team member Maximilian Braun. The principle: With the aid of the data recorder, all procedures and interactions, for example in a rehabilitation treatment session, are processed and made visible – in a virtual and anonymized form. “This enables us to understand why something went wrong,” says Svenja Breuer. Especially important for the development of the recorder, she adds, are not only the engineering, social sciences and legal experts, but above all the involvement of those who will later be interacting with the robots.