Robot Nurses Will Assist Sick And Elderly - Magazine
Wednesday January 12 2:31 PM ET 

LONDON (Reuters) - Robot nurses may soon be helping the sick and elderly by
telling them when to take their pills and recording their temperature and
pulse, New Scientist magazine said Wednesday. 

Engineers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) in Pennsylvania have designed a new generation of robots to make life
easier for the elderly and housebound and to inform their doctors of medical
problems. 

"Flo the robot nurse will remind people when to take their medicines and
regularly check their vital signs - e-mailing the data to a doctor," the
weekly science magazine said. 

At the moment Flo is an early prototype for a Personal Service Robot which
developers are designing to help people. 

"Flo is unique in the range of tools being developed to assist the elderly,"
according to Sebastian Thrun, an assistant professor of CMU's Center for
Automated Learning and Discovery. 

"It's a personal assistant as opposed to an intelligent wheelchair or smart
walking aid."

The engineers are also working on ways to enable the robots to open jars and
bottles for arthritis patients.

http://www.ri.cmu.edu/projects/project_347.html
