Development of Physical and Mental Support System Using Communication Robot for Isolated COVID-19 Patients

Kuwahara, H.; Mieno, A.; Yamaguchi, T.; Hemmi, K.

The symptoms of the COVID-19 infection are statistically commonly observed in the order of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. These symptoms can exacerbate over time and require continuous measurements of body temperature and percutaneous arterial oxygen saturation. In addition, it has been suggested that patients in isolation become psychologically anxious, and therefore, communication is important to promote mental health. A system that automatically supports both physical management and mental health of COVID-19 patients has not been developed yet;therefore, our research group developed a system that supports physical management and promotes mental health through a communication robot called Unibo. Regarding the feasibility of the proposed system, it was verified that the developed system could be implemented in terms of both physical management support and the promotion of mental health. The results showed that the subject’s impression of winsomeness towards Unibo worked in a psychologically positive manner. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.