Australia’s first care robot supporting WA residents

The robot, named Zora, is programed to provide cognitively and physically stimulating activities to the residents of the Madeley facility in Perth.

Zora is 57 cm tall and can host activities such as exercise and dance classes, book and news reading, joke telling and music classes and have one-on-one interactions with residents.

The robot is easily programed and operated through a remote tablet. It has inbuilt cameras, speakers and microphones and is equipped with speech recognition and voice synthesis in 19 languages.

Brightwater Chief Executive, Dr Penny Flett believes evidence-based innovation and adopting new technologies is crucial to overcoming some of the aged care sector’s biggest challenges ahead, including the rapid increase in the number of adults with cognitive decline, such as dementia, which is placing increasingly high demands on care workers.

“Many of our residents suffer some form of cognitive decline. To provide the best care possible we must constantly offer them new and different stimulation experiences, both mentally and physically. The Zora Robot is easy to use for our care staff and is unlike anything the residents have experienced,” Dr Flett says.

“With Zora leading activity sessions our valued staff will be freed up so they can devote more time to quality one-on-one interaction with residents. Our care workers will also be able to build a unique skillset in programing the robot.”

Zora will be part of a landmark study held at Madeley in 2016 under Brightwater Research Centre’s Senior Researcher Karla Seaman, to increase the understanding of human-robot interaction in reducing cognitive decline in older people.

The Zora Robot is currently active in aged care facilities throughout Europe and the United States. Brightwater’s Madeley facility will be the first Australian centre to join its global counterparts at the very cutting edge of best practise and innovation in aged care.

The robot innovation program has been brought to Australia as part of an alliance between Brightwater Care Group, WA medical technology leader Surgical Realities and Belgium-based technology group QBMT. Zora is a Flemish acronym for Zorg, Ouderen, Revalidatie and Animatie (Care, Elderly, Rehabilitation and Animation)The Belgian company’s managing director and co-founder Tommy Deblieck, attended the launch event.

“We are very pleased to have exclusively partnered with West Australian based company Surgical Realities to introduce the Zora Robot into Australia,” Mr Deblieck says.

“We have been very careful in programing exactly how Zora interacts with people and human gestures such as blinking, making eye contact and slight head movements. It was well worth the effort and it is so rewarding to see the impact this makes on the quality of life for people in aged care.”

The Madeley study is expected to translate research in cognitive and delayed functional decline in older people across the whole Brightwater organisation and the aged care sector in Australia.