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 From an article at Healthcare Robots, we find that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to release a geriatric robot during 2006. The robot - Wakamaru - has a round yellow head and black eyes.
Wakamaru is so robust that he or she -- Mitsubishi can give the robot either a male or female voice -- can be programmed to remind patients to take their medicine and even call a doctor when it appears that someone is in distress.
Wakamaru's primary goal for the Japanese market, however, is to provide companionship.
In Japan, birth rates have fallen to the point that the Japanese fear there won't be enough people to take care of the country's elderly. Further compounding the problem is that people in Japan live longer than anywhere else in the world.
By 2015, the number of Japanese citizens aged 65 and older is expected to climb to 33 million, or 26 percent of the population. Mitsubishi's Wakamaru is an innovative technology to address the needs of this aging population.
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