The elderly patients suffer from severe dementia, but their faces light up when they see the dog-shaped robot, swaddled in soft clothing, waddle around the hospital floor. Some clap; others break into feeble smiles. Urged by nurses, a few cautiously reach out and touch it.
"It's cute," one female patient cries out.
This is one in a budding series of robot-therapy sessions at Japanese hospitals and senior citizens' homes. To some scientists, robots are the answer to caring for aging societies in Japan and other nations where the young are destined to be overwhelmed by a surging elderly population.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/04/1 ... index.html
