EXCLUSIVE: Japan to Promote Caregiver Robot Development Further

August 21, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government will step up support for companies developing caregiver robots to improve productivity in the field of elderly nursing care amid widespread labor shortages, Jiji Press has learned.

In its budget request for fiscal 2019 from next April, the industry ministry plans to request that funds for such support be increased by around 20 pct from the previous year's 1.1 billion yen, informed sources said.

The use of robots for providing toileting, walking and other assistance is expected to alleviate the physical burdens of care workers considerably and contribute to an easing of labor shortages in the care industry.

Furthermore, the ministry aims to help drastically reduce their work to log care recipients' health data including blood pressure levels, by creating caregiver robots that automatically collect such data as they assist recipients.

Also envisioned is an administrative work assistance system that automatically stores such data for better use of them in care services.

The system would have an artificial intelligence engine that analyzes recipients' behavioral patterns so that more effective care plans will be drawn up for them.

Through the initiative, the ministry aims to nurture the caregiver robot sector into a growth engine for the Japanese economy.

The use of robots to collect personal health data is a relatively unexplored field, even among major U.S. technology firms that lead the gathering and AI-based analysis of big data such as consumers' shopping histories, according to the sources. Jiji Press