PARO Seal Product Overview

Welcome, and on this video we are doing product review for the PARO Therapeutic Seal, design by Takanori Shibata of the Intelligent System Research Institute of Japan’s AIST.

So if you want to see how this cute ball of fluff is helping Alzheimer’s & Dementia patients across the UK, then please stay tuned.

Hi Guys, I’m Philip English and on this video we are looking at the Takanori Shibata designed, Robot PARO Therapeutic baby harp seal.

The main use of the PARO is to produce a calming effect on and elicit emotional responses in patients, similar to Animal-Assisted Therapy except using robots.

The word PARO Stands for Personal Robot and they were first sold commercial back in 2004, with each robot being handmade. We are now on the 9^th generation of the PARO, which includes 5 different types of sensors: tactile, light, audio, temperature, and posture sensors, with which the PARO can perceive people and its environment. There are currently thousands of PARO around the world with about 600 across Europe. As discussed, the Robot is designed to look like a baby harp seal and not a more common pet such as a Cat or Dog. The reason behind this is because we are so use to seeing Cat & Dogs characteristics & behaviours, that a cat or dog robot can easily be recognized as something artificial.

The advantage with a baby harp seal is first we have no pre-concepts of how a seal behaviours and secondly being an infant seal we would consider it to be harmless.

Interaction with animals has long been known to be emotionally beneficial to people and can have three kinds of effects:

Psychological Effects ( It helps with both the Relaxation and Motivation of the patient)
Physiological effects ( Improvement of vital signs and movement)
Social effects ( Stimulation of communication among inpatients and caregivers.

PARO can create the same benefits and results that you would expect to see with both Animal Assisted Activity (AAA) and Animal Assisted therapy (AAT)

With AAA, being about the entertainment, fun, activity and meaningful Tasks side, for both individually or within a group. And AAT, being a more Focus approach on the individual, with targeted actives to improve the patient and specific use of an animal in an organised way.

The benefits include:

More a wake and focused.
Help keeps the patient happy and having fun.
If they have something to look after they will keep better care of them self’s.
Entertainment, Activity and Behaviour, stimulation, play, contact
Makes the patient Feel wanted and give the a purpose, which in turn gives them something to concentrate on.
It also encourages new conversation, topics and communication.

The run through the technology behind the PARO

The touch: It has 12 tactile sensors located along the PARO’s Head, Back, Chin, front & back flippers as well sensors in the whiskers.
Movement: The movement includes Neck, front & back flippers as well as the PARO eyelids.
Hearing: The PARO can recognises words of greeting and praise and can learn its own name.
Vision: It has light sensors to distinguish light intensities as well as flashes of light
Sound: The sound from the PARO is from a real life baby harp seal
Position: PARO can recognise whether it is being held, and the general position of its body
Fur : PARO is delivered with an antibacterial fur

Thanks Guys, I hope you enjoyed the overview of the PARO Therapeutic Seal, design by Takanori Shibata of the Intelligent System Research Institute of Japan’s AIST.

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Please have a look below, where I have put links relating to this videos , as well as other information about the “PARO Therapeutic Seal ”.

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Thanks Guys! And I will see you next time.

Philip English: https://philipenglish.com

Sponsor: Robot Center: http://www.robotcenter.co.uk