Pandemic Effects on Social Companion Robot Use in Care Homes

During the past year with a pandemic, there have been many discussions of the use of robots in healthcare, and in particular the care of older adults. There are reports that COVID-19 drives adoption of robot technologies, and that health institutions are more positive to the use of robots due to the lower risk of virus spread, among other reasons. The media have contributed significantly to an increased interest in caring robots and from a societal perspective — given recent lockdowns, social distancing, etc. — an increase of robot usage in health care settings is not difficult to imagine. Older adults have in many countries been isolated, either at home or in care homes. This group, and especially individuals with dementia, were already vulnerable before the pandemic, living with an increased risk for loneliness and depression. For the last 10 years in Sweden, many actions have been taken to improve these people’s well-being and quality of life, including the use of social companion robots as psychological interventions. Given the increased isolation due to the pandemic, we wanted to investigate how the use of social companion robots has been affected in care homes during this time. We, therefore, interviewed nine health care staff members from seven different care homes for older adults in Sweden. The results summarised in this paper provides a real-world status report, one year after the outbreak, of how the pandemic has affected the usage of social companion robots in care homes.