Robot seal inventor visits Royal Freemasons
The inventor of PARO, the robotic seal used to stimulate people living with dementia, has paid a visit to Royal Freemasons Coppin Centre where the robot seal has been implemented.
Bottom L-R: Dementia residents Marcos and Keith, Top L-R: Yuji Miyoshi, GM Kowa Australia (PARO distributor), Christina Chia, EO Royal Freemasons, Prof. Takanori Shibata, inventor of PARO.
During his visit Mr Shibata personally reinforced how technology can play an important role in delivering a better quality of life for people in aged care.
Invented by Mr Takanori Shibata, a visiting Professor of the Tokyo Institute of Technology and a visiting Fellow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
this robotic seal was specifically developed as a therapeutic device to assist patients suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia and has been successfully used world wide to provide calming and caring of aged patients.
Mr Shibata has been world wide acclaimed for his development of PARO and is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the ‘World's Most Therapeutic Robot’ ever developed.
Research has found that this scientific tool is extremely beneficial for dementia residents who have known behaviours such as agitation, wandering and aggression and who are resistive to standard intervention practices.
Royal Freemasons has purchased an initial eight Therapeutic Robot Seals for their dementia aged care customers.
The robot reacts to the attention given by a patient as if it was a child and has been shown to have very excellent therapeutic effects on the well being of the patient.
The initial rollout of the Paro seals at Royal Freemasons has begun. Results of the trial will be continually monitored to instigate further rollouts to other customers to help improve their quality of life.
