Fujita Health University of Toyoake, Aichi Prefecture, is collaborating with Toyota Motor to start a Robotic Smart Home, a base for nursing robots at the Toyoake apartment complex, by next spring.
As the country approaches a “superaging” society when the child boomer generation turns 75 years of ages and above, the job aims to establish little robotics that can be quickly installed in small Japanese houses, with the cooperation of homeowners.
The Toyoake real estate complex started in 1971 and presently has some 4,500 people living. But 45 years after its conclusion, the center’s occupants are now predominantly senior with 26.2 percent aged over 65.
The university signed in 2014, a detailed contract on nursing care and medical services with the Toyoake and the Urban Renaissance Agency.
Based on the contract, the university started the Fujita Machikado clinic within the complex to provide group workout classes as part of preventive care. It also motivates its students to reside in vacant rooms at the complex and connect with the citizens.
The nursing robotic project, at the same time, started with the goal of supporting senior individuals living in their own houses.
By next spring, the complex’s conference room will be remodeled into a 75-sq.-meter showroom that replicates one of its living-room.
The university, together with Toyota and Moritoh Corp., a nursing care lift maker in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, will focus on establishing robots that can help individuals in moving within the house or making use of a toilet, the kind of aid often requested by elderly people getting nursing care in the house.
To be shown at the showroom will be robotics that can carry out activities such as getting drinks and opening a curtain, along with a system that allows individuals to take part in workout classes from another location by means of a TV screen.
Senior locals will be invited to the display room to attempt utilizing the robots beginning in fall 2017, and the project group will clarify concerns that need to be solved prior to putting the gadgets on the marketplace.
