By Ethan Benedicto
Casey Aged Care in Narre Warren introduced its new Memory Care Wing expansion on Tuesday, as well as Abi, a new robot companion, and a swathe of other technologies to cater to patients living with dementia.
This celebration came hand-in-hand with commemorating 10 years of management, as well as showcasing virtual reality headsets and a sensory wizard for active play and participation from residents.
Medical Aged Care Group CEO Cameron McPherson said that he felt “incredibly humbled”.
“This gives people hope. We haven’t found a cure for dementia, but it’s something that we’re working on.
“We talked about Abi today, and we’ve got the VR systems as well as the sensory wizard, they’re a range of tools and vehicles; they’re not a means to an end; we use technology as a vehicle for care,” he said.
Andromeda Robotics were also attending the event, with founder and CEO Grace Brown and two others from the team, all more than eager to showcase Abi’s capabilities to the elderly crowd.
Abi is around three feet tall, is coloured dark pink and yellow, and has a rather snazzy personality with just the right amount of flair.
Mitch, one of Adromeda’s representatives and the team behind Abi, said that Abi is an aged-care companion robot “designed to combat three types of isolation”.
“So that’s physical isolation, where people can’t leave their rooms, social isolation and linguistic isolation.
“There may be a situation where maybe in a home, no one else speaks that language, and Abi can speak more than 30 languages fluently,” Mitch said.
However, there is capacity for up to 90 languages; as it stands, Abi was conversational, and she engaged audiences in rather swift but understandable exchanges and asked one aged care worker about her favourite past-time activity.
Speaking on the humanoid companion’s capabilities, an Andreomeda spokesperson said that “Abi is getting better all the time, and I think it’s really valuable for people to understand the benefits of it”.
“And, Abi’s never finished; the idea has existed for a couple of years, and new iterations of Abi are just going to keep coming out.”
Before the technological showcase, patrons were guided to the new wing, where McPherson and Bruce MP Julian Hill spoke to the crowd on the importance of aged care and the ever-growing technological advancements and their support of the industry.
Both Hill and McPherson cut the red ribbon, announcing the official opening of the wing that finished construction in the last two weeks.
