October 24, 2021 by Cristian Barrué

Visiting Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili

A team of researchers from the Perception and Manipulation Laboratory (Institute of Robotics and Industrial Computing) led by Carme Torras visited the Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili intermediate care hospital in Barcelona on October 7th to work on future collaborations in the application of Assistive Robotics within the framework of the PTI+ Neuro-Aging project: Understanding aging from R&D&I.

The team was received by the Directorate of Integrated Care and Research, led by Dr Marco Inzitari, and by members of the Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili Research Commission. Throughout the visit, both teams presented different scenarios for applying robotics in the healthcare context. Among them, it was highlighted the possibility of using robots to feed people with motor or cognitive problems. Care professionals valued the experience as an initiative that opens new perspectives in care management. Having robots capable of feeding patients in a personalized way would allow healthcare professionals to dedicate their time to more essential tasks, improve service efficiency and reduce routine tasks with little added value. Both groups showed the will to continue working together to define a pilot project to develop and test a robot that supports the feeding of patients who cannot do it by themselves in the hospital context.