An interdisciplinary team for the design and integration of assistive robots in health care applications

The integration of assistive robots into the health sector requires an interdisciplinary team of researchers capable of studying and addressing issues that arise in human-robot interaction scenarios. In particular, current and future advancements in technologies demand a unique partnership between engineering and the health sciences to develop clinically relevant assistive robots. In this article, the authors discuss an interdisciplinary team approach for integration of assistive robots in health care applications. In particular, the objective of their interdisciplinary team is to design, integrate, and study socially assistive robots in the resident care practice in long-term care nursing facilities. The authors envision that the model they propose can be easily duplicated in other institutions around the world.