How robots and games are reshaping elderly care in China

This article is co-written by Minghe Hu.

Wang Lingmei is sitting in front of a rehab training machine in an elderly care center in China and playing an electronic game.

Using a machine that looks a bit like an electronic piano with a TV screen attached instead of a music score, the 84-year-old is reaching out to touch virtual fruits by moving a handle as part of a daily exercise routine to recover mobility after fracturing her right arm and leg in a fall a year ago.

Photo credit: Pixabay

“The game is interesting and makes me feel happy,” she says in a Shanghai dialect. “We have a therapist to monitor our condition while using it, so I am not afraid of this technology and machine. After all, it’s a new thing for me.”

Wang is one of 30 patients who live in the Lujiazui Elderly Community Center, which is located in one of the most popular areas of Shanghai’s Pudong district.

China is graying, and the number of over 60s reached 250 million in 2018 out of a total population of about 1.4 billion, meaning the country needs to address how a growing proportion of elderly people can be supported by a creaking welfare system.

In 2019, about two working people paying pension contributions support one non-working retiree, but by 2050, the dependency ratio is expected to drop to one contributor supporting one retiree, according to a recent report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

That is why a growing number of scientists and tech companies in China are working on AI applications to make the country’s healthcare services more efficient.

More broadly, the use of AI in the global healthcare market is expected to grow from US$2.1 billion in 2018 to US$36.1 billion by 2025, according to a report by research firm MarketsandMarkets.

The Lujiazui Elderly Community Center is also the first institute in the district to use smart mattresses with sensors to help monitor the health of patients, and the data can be shared with medical staff and family members. Patients can even be located by GPS in case they are “lost.”

Before having the electronic rehabilitation machine, which is made by Shanghai-based startup Fourier Intelligence, the center had to hire a therapist to visit every day to help patients with rehab exercise.

Although the therapist is still needed, the machine frees up the human from repetitive, time-consuming work.

“The therapist would direct the patient’s hand to an object and help them repeat the move around 500 times in 20 minutes,” said Gu Jie, CEO of Fourier Intelligence. “It would completely occupy the therapist’s time, and for the patients it wasn’t exactly fun.”