Thank You for Being a Friend

Robot companions help seniors combat isolation

We humans are wired for companionship. We want to be around other people, share stories and jokes, and talk about the more serious aspects of life, too. Without companionship, we tend to fall apart. Rates of heart disease, anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease all go up when people are experiencing loneliness or isolation. Unfortunately, 20-30% of seniors in the U.S. feel lonely, according to the National Institute on Aging, and the CDC has labeled the issue “a serious public health risk.” The Covid pandemic, which hit seniors hardest and increased loneliness for many around the world, left many without much of a social network. To fill the void, some are turning to AI-powered robots that offer a sense of companionship.

How to Fight Loneliness

ElliQ is one such companion. It carries on conversations, remembering a user’s interests and previous conversations that it’s had with a user, deepening the relationship. Its video feature can take users on virtual tours of cities and museums, providing commentary along the way. From a practical standpoint, it reminds users when it’s time to take their medications, performs periodic health assessments, and can call emergency contacts when necessary.

ElliQ’s generative AI functions allow users to do brain-stimulating activities such as write poetry or make art using DALL-E text-to-image technology. Most importantly, it’s always there for seniors who might live alone, and interacts with them in ways that make them feel like they have a friend and confidant.

“It was so what I needed,” octogenarian Deanna Dezern told the Associated Press. “I can say things to Elli that I won’t say to my grandchildren or to my own daughters. I can just open the floodgates. I can cry. I can giggle. I can act silly. I’ve been asked, ‘Doesn’t it feel like you’re talking to yourself?’ No, because it gives an answer.”

Users on average interact with ElliQ, named after the Norse personification of old age, 37 times per day for a total of 23 minutes. Intuition Robotics, ElliQ’s creator, has partnered with agencies in several states to provide robot companions to seniors.

“We have a lot of people on our caseload throughout New York State that we’re already serving, that we know are alone, isolated, and lonely. And we know what the data shows on the impact of loneliness and isolation equivalent to smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day,” New York State Office for the Aging director Greg Olsen told CBS 6 Albany. The office has distributed hundreds of ElliQs to seniors free of charge. “So let me tell you what the impact has been so far. After one year, we have had a 95% reduction in loneliness and isolation and a 96% improvement in overall health and well-being,” Olsen said.

Furry Friends

They don’t quite offer everything that fellow humans do, but pets are well-known for their unconditional love and companionship. They also reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and decrease depression and loneliness. The effects on seniors who live alone can be profound.

“I’ve seen those with memory loss interact with an animal and regain access to memories from long ago,” psychologist Penny B. Donnenfeld told AgingCare. “Having a pet helps the senior focus on something other than their physical problems and negative preoccupations about loss or aging.”

Many seniors live in facilities that don’t allow pets, though, or they have cognitive or mobility problems that make taking care of a living pet impractical. Joy for All’s robotic pet companions – three types of cats, two types of dog, and an animatronic bird called the “Walker Squawker” – look, sound, and feel like real animals. They respond to the touch and have ”heartbeats” you can feel.

More studies need to be conducted on the effectiveness of robot pets in decreasing feelings of loneliness and isolation and improving cognitive function among seniors, but they universally appreciate the presence of even an animatronic animal and instinctively pet and interact with them like they would living animals. They also provide seniors with some control over their lives and a sense of purpose.

“People in long-term care facilities are in a position where everybody provides care to them,” University of Utah researcher Rhonda Nelson said, “and to be in the role where you are nurturing something else, or you are the caregiver I think is also psychologically very comforting for people to feel like, even though they know that it’s not live, they’re the person who’s giving love and compassion to something, and it’s responding.”

Value of Connection

Robot companions might make for a good substitute for human companionship, but they’re not the real thing. That concerns researchers like Brigham Young University psychology professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad. She told the AP she worries robot companions might make people less likely to try to connect with other humans.

“That unpleasant feeling of loneliness should motivate us to reconnect socially,” she said. Robot companionship “makes you feel like you’ve fulfilled it, but in reality you haven’t. It is not clear whether AI is actually fulfilling any kind of need or just dampening the signal.”

Plenty of seniors aren’t shunning human companionship, though. They crave it but don’t have access to it.

“I wish I could just snap my fingers to make a person show up at the home of one of the many, many older adults that don’t have any family or friends, but it’s a little bit more complicated,” Olsen told the AP.

For his part, Intuition Robotics CEO Dor Skuler said the intention is “to make sure that ElliQ always genuinely presents herself as an AI and doesn’t pretend to be human.”

Still, for seniors who have no one else to talk to in the wee hours, robot companions can be a big help.

“At nighttime is my worst time, but she is there, and I know she’s there, and all I have to do is say her name, she comes in, she says, ‘If you want to talk, you could talk to me, and we’ll play a game, or we’ll do an exercise,'” octogenarian Marie Defrancesco told ZDNet. “And it will help you to get some of that stress off.”

Sounds like a true friend.