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Federal regulators crack down on social media abuse in nursing homes
According to a ProPublica report released late last year, documented cases of nursing home employees sharing abusive or degrading images of their residents on social media are on the rise. To combat the problem, federal health officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which regulates nursing homes and assisted living facilities, have now asked state health departments to enact policies that prohibit employees from taking or sharing demeaning photos of residents.
Japanese seniors shun their robotic overlords
According to reports out of Tokyo, Japanese senior citizens are being turned off when robots get switched on. Ifbot, a helper-robot at a Japanese nursing home which can converse, sing, express emotions, quiz seniors, and perform mercy killings (okay, that last one isn't true), has apparently not been a hit with the elderly residents. "The residents liked Ifbot for about a month before they lost interest," says Yasuko Sawada, the Kyoto-based facility's director, adding, "Stuffed animals are more popular." The news backs up what University of Tokyo geriatric social worker Ruth Campbell says, "Most (elderly) people are not interested in robots. They see robots as overly-complicated and unpractical." Apparently, Japanese electronics-makers have been scrambling to produce robotic assistants for the nation's elderly (which will make up 40-percent of its population by mid-century), but the seniors have been shunning the overly complex companions. This comes as no surprise to us, of course, as our grandparents have been complaining about the "picture radio" for decades.
