Research shows that people are more receptive to social robots since the pandemic and I was asked to comment on this in an article for the UK Evening Standard. Robots are now seen as a more viable response to loneliness across age groups. I have a friend who is the most attentive daughter I know. Prior to lockdown, Emma wanted her mom to move from upstate New York to live with her in the city, now that her mom is in her 90s, widowed and partially sighted. But her mom, Olivia, is fiercely independent and is determined to stay in her own home until she dies. So it was heart breaking when she told us that she loves her smart assistant Alexa because she doesn’t feel so alone at home anymore. We can’t always do what we think is best in these situations, but we can empathize that when faced with our mortality, actions that can seem totally scary and off-putting to us now, like uploading our consciousness to the internet, may have a different appeal. In the meantime, your mom might need a robot. 

In Japan, where they are currently grappling with managing their massive elderly population, there are robot pets to reduce loneliness, robot nurses in care homes, and robot carers to help at home. No matter how much you love your parents, if they are becoming deaf and forgetful and asking you the same question multiple times in a day, it would be understandable to eventually become stressed by the situation. A robot will never get irritated with your mom. A robot will repeat the same task a million times. A robot can even dispense medication and learn your preferences. 

This is becoming such an important consideration because the aging population and growing dementia crisis are ticking time bombs for our society. The disproportionate number of deaths in care homes, and in the over 70’s, and the risks for people working in these environments has sharpened our understanding of how untenable this situation is. The current growth of the population ages 65 and older is unprecedented. Average life expectancy in the United States increased in large part due to the reduction in mortality at older ages, but dementia rates are growing. The gender gap in life expectancy is narrowing but it still remains that women outlive men by about five years. On the other hand, more older adults are divorced and living alone, and demand for elder care will also be driven by a steep rise in the number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. These facts are alarming and it is easy to feel helpless in the face of the inevitability of aging ourselves, or the reality of being stretched between caring for young children and elderly parents. But new revelations from healthcare technology have the potential to transform care for the aging population.

One of the most significant contributors to the uptick in dementing diseases that we can control is sleep. Just about every human needs  seven to nine hours of sleep per night, and until recently, we have wondered why human brains need so much sleep. With many high-profile leaders claiming to need only four to five hours of shut eye per night, it can become increasingly tempting not to “waste” those valuable hours in what is already a stressful life. As it turns out, stress and lack of sleep are the very toxins we need to avoid if we want to keep dementia diseases at bay. Case in point: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher both famously survived on little sleep, but both also went on to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

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