Robots can treat elderly with humanity
Advances in medicine have left us with an ageing population crashing into an epidemic of dementia
Move over science fiction. Forget the kerfuffle about the first female Doctor. The reality is more extraordinary. On much of this planet, we are all time travellers.
In Britain it’s been like this for about 175 years. Throughout this astonishing period, for every 24 hours the average man and woman aged, he or she was miraculously transported eight hours away from the Grim Reaper. How? Growing life expectancies.
This is the gift of modern medicine. Child mortality dramatically decreased, of course, but at every stage of life – five, 50 or 70 years old – we could expect to survive longer with every day that passed. Today, however, we take this utterly extraordinary achievement for granted. So when a new report reveals that the bull market in lifespans is over, we panic.
Not that the study, from the Institute of Health Equity at UCL, says they are going into reverse (though for some people in America, shockingly, they are). It’s just that the rate of increase is slowing. Life expectancy is now growing at only four hours in each 24. So you still get a sixth of your life back every day. The Reaper must still drum his bony fingers. Humanity’s medical Tardis is still working, just not quite so well.
There is one big culprit: dementia, now the main killer of women over 80 and men over 85. This is not unique to us. Japan is the world leader for life expectancy, and is facing what locals describe as “an epidemic of dementia”. The inescapable reality is that across the world our ageing populations are crashing into a ubiquitous, incurable condition. The question is, until we do find a cure, how should we respond?
First, we must focus on extending not just lifespans, but healthy lifespans. In Japan men and women live to an average of 81 and 87 (compared to 79 and 83 here). But whereas we can expect only 71.4 years of healthy life, they, through boring old things like diet and exercise, can expect 74.9 – an extra three and half years of good health.
Once we have done what we can on that score, we must focus on making life for those with dementia better. And this has more to do with how we, the rest of the population, behave. Do we always spend enough time and money supporting our elderly and unwell? The answer is no.
No doubt we can and should do more. Respect for the elderly and infirm must become a cultural norm, as it is in Japan. Casually dumping the old on the NHS should be stigmatised.
Even so, there are limits. Families are geographically fragmented. Looking after elderly parents comes when many middle-aged people are stretched, juggling careers and children of their own. Even for those who can, it is often bloody tough.
This is where robots always enter the debate. And what a dispiriting debate it usually is. For won’t future robot carers only enforce the segregation of those with dementia, literally dehumanising care? Do not so-called Robot Assisted Therapies represent a betrayal of the old that amply justifies their acronym: Rats?
The answer, counter-intuitively, is probably not. Research shows that people instinctively empathise with humanoid robots. People are also capable of crediting robots with the ability to empathise with us – to feel our pain. And treating dementia sufferers requires both personalisation and patience, both of which robots can deliver relentlessly. More than that, they can be programmed to behave in an authentically childlike, nonjudgmental fashion particularly suitable for dementia sufferers, in a way that adults never can. Little wonder then that Rats actually elicit more positive emotional responses than conventional therapy.
Families know how hard and distressing it can be, looking after a parent who insists they are living in the 1970s. Is the best person to deal with that a rushed care home worker on minimum wage who hardly speaks English? Robots, far from being overwhelmed, can respond with limitless kindness and sensitivity. With humanity, in other words.
It will be hard for us real humans to embrace the idea that we are not actually the best carers for dementia patients after all. But we should. For no matter how unsettling, the Rats may ultimately allow loving relatives of those with dementia to do what they do best and resume their roles as family – not carers.