Socially Assistive Robots (SAR) in In-Patient Care for the Elderly.

In-patient care of the elderly is currently being put to the test in all developed industrial nations. The aim is to make the resident-centered and nursing-related care more professional. In addition to the organizational and interdisciplinary orientation, the use of socially assistive robot technologies and artificial intelligence is increasingly coming to the fore. By means of literature research, expert interviews and an online survey of Upper Austrian nursing home directors, current and future challenges and challenges for the use of socially assistive robots (SAR) in in-patient care for the elderly were identified and prioritized. It becomes clear that the technological and application-oriented maturity of SAR as well as the modular adaptation of the hybrid SAR services to the existing structures and processes from the point of view of the nursing home management are in the foreground. In the future, it will be increasingly important to bring the process-related and technological support of human-machine interaction through SAR to a value-adding level.