Hello, my name is Mario!
My job is to help elderly people, who may suffer from mild cognitive impairment, to improve their quality of life. I assist them, hence I talk to them, respond to their requests, assess their health status, and help them solving practical problems (e.g. finding the house keys). I am also one of their closest friends, hence I try to entertain them, also by helping them remembering the nicest memories of their life.
MARIO was presented by Dr. Dympna Casey and Prof. Kathy Murphy (both from NUIG - the project coordinator), at the 25th Annual Conference of Alzheimer Europe which took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 2-4 September 2015. The following are some photos of the event.
Hi Mario Kompai here
I just found out that older people and people with dementia are really looking forward to meeting me! I know that my type of technology is very familiar to younger humans with their Ipads , game consoles and interactive devices so I was just a little worried about how older people might react to me and if they would accept me. It’s also not easy for me either you know, I find some of you humans a little scary, the sound of your voices, the clothes you wear and the way you move around on legs, all seems a little strange to me! But my creators are so wonderful, they anticipate these concerns and so they are doing a number of things.
An interesting article about robots in workplaces has been published in an Irish news site (Independent) and Mario is included as an example of robots being used in nursing homes and other related workplaces.
Click here to view the full article.
The Robotics Daily for Monday 10th August 2015 has recognised a blog post that was recently published on our website.
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