Slashdot Mirror
Japan Wants To Increase Acceptance of Technology That Could Help Fill the Gap in the Nursing Workforce (theguardian.com)
With Japan's ageing society facing a predicted shortfall of 370,000 caregivers by 2025, the government wants to increase community acceptance of technology that could help fill the gap in the nursing workforce. From a report: Developers have focused their efforts on producing simple robotic devices that help frail residents get out of their bed and into a wheelchair, or that can ease senior citizens into bathtubs. But the government sees a wider range of potential applications and recently revised its list of priorities to include robots that can predict when patients might need to use the toilet. Dr Hirohisa Hirukawa, director of robot innovation research at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said the aims included easing the burden on nursing staff and boosting the autonomy of people still living at home. "Robotics cannot solve all of these issues; however, robotics will be able to make a contribution to some of these difficulties," he said. Hirukawa said lifting robotics had so far been deployed in only about 8% of nursing homes in Japan, partly because of the cost and partly because of the "the mindset by the people on the frontline of caregiving that after all it must be human beings who provide this kind of care."
Quality of life matters more than longevity. While it's fun to compare countries by life expectancy, is having a longer lifespan really "better" if you're going to spend that extra 5 years (83 for Japan, 78 for the U.S.) confined to a nursing home needing someone's assistance for all your basic needs and bodily functions?
Maybe "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long" is really the way we should be approaching this. AARP forgive me, but maybe we should decrease or stop funding for research against illnesses which typically afflict us when we're elderly, and concentrate instead on combating diseases which can strike us down in childhood to middle age.
You also need to pay for longer lifespan by working longer (retiring later) if you want to maintain the same standard of living. Is it really worth giving up 3-4 years (retirement at 68-69 instead of 65), in order to gain 5 years of extra life at 78?
Just being able to lift seniors in and out of bed, or readjusting the sheets, (without hurting the caregiver's back) would be a real boon to caregivers.
I'm a big guy myself, I know how to lift properly, but I still hurt myself taking care of my elderly mother (even though, home hospice care lent us a motorized hospital bed). And I can't imagine nurses doing this kind of work for very long if they hurt their lower back or get carpal tunnel syndrome after just a few weeks.