What should a robot do for you?-Evaluating the needs of the elderly in the UK

The increasing interest in the use of robotic assistive technologies in elderly care for the UK makes it necessary for roboticists to evaluate the needs, problems and demands of possible end-users of such technologies. Users of these technologies can be divided into three groups: informal caregivers (family members and friends), formal caregivers (medical staff, social workers, homehelp), and the elderly themselves. In this paper we present the results of a series of focus groups conducted between March and May 2012. We used the metaplan method to evaluate the opinions and needs of each of the three different potential user groups mentioned above. In these discussions we extracted a variety of problem dimensions and their interconnections in order to understand in which parts of everyday life assistive technology could help, and is needed the most.