Abstract
We attempted to realize robot communication with older patients with psychological symptoms in an acute hospital using two approaches：the feasibility study and robot application investigation study. For the feasibility study, two robots, Pepper and RoBoHoN, with their initial applications were placed near the nurse station. The ward nurse observed that almost all the patients felt happy. For the robot application investigation study, we developed two original applications：a robot saying several sentences randomly and repetitively and a robot talking with the patients based on programed topics such as family and childhood. The study revealed that calling patients using their names and waving a hand was important to attract attention of hospitalized older patients.The nurse observed that a patient became willing to enter rehabilitation positively after hearing the robot speaking. In addition, we observed that 10 out of 11 patients felt happy to listening to the robot. The results indicated that the robots have the capability to decrease the psychological symptoms, provide encouragement for active involvement in the treatments such as rehabilitation, and increase the sociality of the older patients.
