Vita gazette – Another development has been made for the period when mankind needed help. Robots will soon be working in aged care homes. The robot, named “Garmi,” is being prepared to perform various tasks, such as diagnosing and caring for patients.

A group of researchers at the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence recently unveiled their new robo-helper, Garmi—named after Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski resort town home to the school’s unit specialising in geriatronics, a relatively new field developing cutting edge tech for elderly care. The office location isn’t an accident, either. Garmisch-Partenkirchen boasts one of Germany’s highest proportional senior populations.

The humanoid robot “Garmi” has a range of capabilities, from diagnosing patients to providing their care and treatment. Garmi is the product of a new geriatrics industry, which combines aged care and nursing services with robotics and software. The nursing robot is expected to take an active role in Europe, where the life expectancy is long. While the number of people in need of care is increasing rapidly in Germany alone, 670,000 caregiver positions are expected to remain open until 2050. Under these circumstances, researchers are trying to design robots to perform some of the tasks nurses, caregivers, and doctors perform.

Somewhat resembling Honda’s Asimo on wheels, Garmi is currently in early prototype testing but could soon offer a wide array of assistance for older patients in hospitals and nursing facilities.

Abdeldjallil Naceri, the lab’s lead scientist, likened deploying Garmi to installing ATMs around a town. “We can imagine that one day, based on the same model, people can come to get their medical examination in a technology hub,” he told Agence France-Presse.

From there, doctors could remotely evaluate patients’ diagnostics, which could be particularly helpful for those living in secluded locations. For example, researchers guided Garmi to a patient stand-in in a lab demonstration using joystick controls. Once correctly positioned, the robot aide positioned a stethoscope to the subject’s chest, providing health data to the driver’s computer screen. Outside medical facilities, Garmi could be deployed in residences to offer personalised help, like opening bottles, serving meals, and facilitating video calls for families or emergencies.