- Title: JAPAN: Robotic seal helps elderly victims recover from tsunami's mental scars
- Date: 2nd August 2011
- Summary: IWAKI CITY, FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE, JAPAN (JULY 28, 2011) (REUTERS) SUISYOEN RETIREMENT HOME RETIREMENT HOME RESIDENTS SITTING AT TABLE PLAYING WITH ROBOTIC SEAL PARO LADY MOVING PARO 84-YEAR-OLD SATSUKO YATSUZAKA HOLDING PARO YATSUZAKA PLAYING WITH PARO VARIOUS OF YATSUZAKA PLAYING WITH PARO (SOUNDBITE) 85-YEAR-OLD SATSUKO YATSUZAKA SAYING: "If I hold onto this, it
- Embargoed: 17th August 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Japan, Japan
- Country: Japan
- Topics: Disasters,Quirky,Science / Technology,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVAE9Y2VP1FGO713Y6I62GTZ9PKM
- Story Text: For some elderly survivors of Japan's march earthquake and tsunami, comfort comes in the form of a small white robotic seal named Paro.
Sitting only 27 kilometre (approximately 16 miles) south of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant and on a hill above an area ravaged by the tsunami, the Suisyoen retirement home is located in the middle of Japan's triple crises.
While the home itself was spared from major damage, radiation fears led to the facility being evacuated for two months until Mid-may.
A week after they returned, the robotics division of Japanese company Daiwa House offered two robots of the 2.7kilogram (Approx 6 pound) robots coated with anti-bacterial fur, now nicknamed Love and Peace for free for a period of 2 years.
The robots normally cost around 12,000 Yen(Approx 155 U.S. dollars) per month to lease.
The furry friends are now treated as pets by the residents, with many of them still dealing with memories of the March quake, although some of the residents hold onto the seals for longer than others.
"If I hold onto this, it doesn't matter if there's a typhoon outside, I still feel safe," said 85-year-old Satsuko Yatsuzaka after she had been hugging one of the seals for about half an hour.
While some retirement homes have used animals to help with therapy for residents, Suisyoen's General Manager Taku Katoono said that using this sort of therapeutic robot lowered many of the barriers that would normally be in the way of using live animals.
"First of all it's necessary to have a live animal to raise for animal therapy. That however is rather difficult in certain situations and so in this case we use a doll, albeit a robotic one, as an alternative method to help them recover," Katoono said.
As the robots can only hold an hour and a half charge, they are normally used in the morning and then charged over lunch to be used again in the afternoon.
The robots even take in the daily exercises, with residents help the seals clap and sing along.
Ayako Shizo, who lived below the retirement home and had been commuting during the day to the retirement home, lost her house in the tsunami.
Afterwards, she moved with everyone else in the home and stayed in an one-floor evacuation centre without any walls for privacy for two months before finally returning to Suisyoen.
Although not having raised pets before, Shizo explained that she liked playing with the seal.
"It's just as cute a little living creature and so everyone is looking after it every day. It does sometimes runs out of batteries and stop. But when it's got its eyes open everyone stands around talking to it, asking it how it's doing and such," Shizo said.
Local media have reported that over 55% of the victims of the tsunami were over 65 years old, with those who did survive still faced with dealing with the mental scars.
Suisyoen said that currently they don't plan on getting any more Paros, but if one resident becomes especially attached to one of them they may increase the number of furry companions for the residents. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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