USA Robots are landing in France to take care of the elderly

Published on 18/09/2015 à 10:42

The Edenis association located in the Midi-‐Pyrénées with its 18 medicalised facilities for the elderly and dependant has partnered with the Toulousian Company RoboCARE Lab SAS to provide Presence+ Visitor, an innovative solution aimed at improving the quality of life of its residence thanks to its telepresence robots.

Today Edenis and RoboCARE Lab announce the signature for this strategic partnership to provide robotics services aimed at serving the residence of the association. Starting from October 2015 the partnership aims to launch pilot solutions in 2 of the Edenis convalescent facilities before a larger deployment.

Two universes collide

The two entities merge their ambitions with the single aim of providing personalised innovative solutions to help improve the quality of life of their elderly and dependant occupants.

The first pilot provides telepresence robots within the facility. The Presence+ Visitor service enables loved-‐ones the opportunity to make virtual visits to the interns. By connecting to the internet from one’s home via a computer equipped with a webcam, the end-‐user can pilot the robots screen and camera remotely in order to communicate with their family member located in the facility.

For Edenis, maintaining the social links between its residence and their loved ones is essential in combating the isolation that old people can feel, and it is for this reason that they have decided to use innovative technology to facilitate relations with family members.

RoboCARE’s Lab Presence+ Visitor aims to help EHPAD (Etablissement d’Hébergement pour Personne Agée dépendante) reinforce essential social ties between the interns and their families by encouraging relations even when family members are not able to visit due to time constrains or where distance creates a barrier to visits.

The person who wishes to visit a loved one virtually can register via a dedicated website to reserve a time and date that will ensure the robots availability. At the time of the visit, the software will allow the user to communicate remotely with the elderly person.

A second innovative service deployed by RoboCARE Lab, Presence+ Senior, is also proposed to the Edenis residents and consists of "innovation animations". These gaming workshops provide on-‐line reading for fun cognitive stimulation, animated by a humanoid robot called Milo. Milo initially started his life in Dallas, USA, and arrived in France for the first time to be distributed exclusively by RoboCARE Lab. Within this framework, a programme aimed at stabilising individuals affected by Alzheimer’s disease is being developed.

Partners in this development program, Edenis is looking at robotics technologies for the elderly in order to help quantify research in supporting its residence.

“We are proud to launch this innovative experiment for elderly people, initially located in two of our facilities, Pin à Villeneuve Tolosane and à la Houlette à Pibrac” announced Gérard Barbier, Executive Director of Edenis. “Thanks to these robots we will be able to provide a new approach creating links and dialogue with the outside world. Indeed, the lack of regular contact with family and friends means that elderly people become withdrawn. Day-‐by-‐day, our teams are located by the residents side to stimulate them. We will support our residence in this new way of communicating by promoting awareness amongst our staff. However, contrary to preconceived ideas, the elderly are not limited by technology and are very interested in new technologies.”

"We are delighted about our partnership with the Edenis association and our initial field tests within the EHPAD", announced Dominique Blasco, RoboCARE Lab co‐founder with Faissal Houhou. "This marks an important step in our development. Telepresence robots are only one of the services we wish to make available to dependant people. For example, in parallel to the Presence+ Visitor project, we are working with Edenis on services aimed to improve cognitive thinking using humanoid robots coming from the American company Robokind for whom we are the exclusive distributer in France."

About Edenis

Edenis, is the first non profit organisation in the Midi-Pyrénées, consisting of 18 medicalised facilities for the elderly. Implanted throughout the Haute-Garonne and at Montauban Edenis has supported elderly dependant people for the last 30 years. Its residence provides a reception, and a warm and friendly environment for its residence, with an individual life project based on the each and every residence wellbeing. Edenis aims to be the leader in the non-profit private sector by adapting the quality required by the aging man. Edenis wishes to increase accessibility to a greater number of individuals while maintaining its vocation by welcoming anyone that requires support in their dependence.

More informations : www.edenis.fr

About RoboCARE Lab

RoboCARE Lab is a French company based in Toulouse. Member of the Pôle de compétitivité CANCER BIO SANTE (CBS), the company addresses, develops and commercialises PRESENCE+, a unified offer of innovative services based on robotics and connected objects. RoboCARE Lab aims to provide solutions that use new technologies to improve the quality of lives on a daily basis. RoboCARE Lab’s main development axe is to support the elderly and help develop personal fulfilment for autistic children.