Robotic therapy pets give elderly patients a new leash on life at hospital
By Itay Hod
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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Many hospitals use cuddly, lovable therapy animals to help patients in their recovery but, as a rule, those pets don’t arrive in a box.
“We had real animals that came around for a while but they’re only here for a few hours a week,” said Annelie Nilsson, clinical nurse specialist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
Nilsson may have found the next best thing: robots that look, feel and sound just like real pets.
“It’s been a great response,” she said. “Patients just love them. It brings a smile to people’s faces.”
It started during the pandemic when Nilsson noticed her elderly patients — many of them suffering from dementia — were having an especially hard time.
“The families were not able to visit and it gets a little lonely here in the hospital,” she said.
So Nilsson turned to the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation and was given a grant to buy 50 robotic cats and dogs.
Kim Meredith, the foundation CEO, said she was skeptical until she saw them in action.
“They’re furry and they’re cuddly and they’re fabulous,” she said.
They purr and move and can seem so lifelike that, at times, Nilsson has to remind folks they’re not real.
“I had one patient say ‘I hope that was a happy cat when it was alive’ because he thought it was a taxidermy cat,” she said.
The robotic pets cost up to $150 each but the reactions from patients, Nilsson said, are priceless.
No need feed them or walk them. For Nilsson, it’s near-perfect progress. Except, perhaps, for one thing.
“The only limit is its battery,” she said.
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