We Need Elder Care Robots Now
by Catherine D'Ambrosio, RN, PhD dambrosi@uw.edu
The old man sits in his living room chair weeping bitter tears. His pants are soiled with urine and feces, oozing through his clothes and into the upholstery. His daughter will not arrive to help him out of his chair and filthy clothes until she gets off work, four hours from now. The old man knows his daughter will be disgusted when she arrives. She had plans to go out this evening. Instead she will be helping him get showered, picking the clumps of feces from inside his clothes, doing laundry, and trying to scrub the excrement out of the upholstered chair. It is already the third time this week.
Every day millions of elders are suffering in situations like this. We can expect it to get worse as more of us are able to live through and despite illnesses, diseases and injuries, successfully surviving beyond our ability to independently care for ourselves. Very few people can afford consistent access to decent, basic nursing care that helps them to maintain their function, mobility and toileting continence. Fewer still are comfortable accepting help with toileting. It is embarrassing and demoralizing to be dependent upon other people to help with this very private function.
Conversely, attending to another person's toileting needs as a primary and consistent responsibility is beneath most people. Assisting elders to maintain toileting continence is messy, smelly, labor-intensive, repetitive, underappreciated, and ultimately unpredictable. Even people desperately in need of a job can find that assisting other people with their toileting needs is degrading and demoralizing. The caregivers -whether they are family members or paid caregivers are going to want and need to seek a higher function, to serve a higher purpose than tending to the toileting needs of another person.
Nearly half of all American elders over the age of 75 years require basic nursing care assistance with activities of daily living (eating, bathing, grooming, dressing, toileting and mobility). Most elders cannot however afford to pay for this basic nursing care. As a consequence elders are becoming ever more reliant upon family caregivers who themselves must then balance their work requirements, relationships, child-rearing responsibilities, social life and sleep with the need of their elderly family members. As a result of these and many other factors, increasing numbers of elders are vulnerable to neglect of their basic nursing care needs -and the terrible consequences upon their health, function, independence, dignity and self-respect.
Unlike many other professions, no significant amount of automation has ever occurred to reduce the cost of or improve the efficiency of basic nursing care delivery. This e-book:
- describes the problems encountered by elders and their family caregivers who are trying to maintain continence in the privacy of their own homes, and
- explicates the inevitable solution: Personal Nursing Care Robots.
