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Product & Services: The BEAR Robot™ |
Other Applications for the BEAR Robot™Humans are adaptable to perform many tasks. One activity that humans are not designed for is lifting and carrying other average adult-sized humans safely over long distances. The BEAR robot is specifically designed to perform this set of tasks. Once such a robot is developed, a number of applications immediately come to mind, particularly in the domain of health care. The TransferBot In hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions, patients with mobility impairments (those who cannot move easily without assistance) need help moving. From bed to chair, bed to bathroom, or even just turning over in bed, patients with mobility impairments need such assistance on a constant basis. Indeed, many spinal cord injury (SCI) patients need help repositioning their bodies at least every two hours. If these patients are not repositioned on this schedule, pressure ulcers—also known as bed sores—can form. If left untreated, these sores can grow to become open wounds that become difficult or impossible to heal. Often, such sores prove fatal. In healthcare institutions across the US and around the world patients rely on nurses and other healthcare workers to perform these frequent, extremely strenuous tasks. When mobility-impaired patients need to transition from bed to chair as described above, the task of assisting these "transfers" often falls to the same nursing staff. Indeed, the number-one cause of sick leave for nurses in the US is various forms of back strain due to lifting or repositioning patients.
The TransferBot robot assisting a mobility-impaired patient out of bed. Additionally eldercare experts know of the crisis which results from labor shortages such as those already being felt in countries like Japan. As the population of the mobility-impaired is projected to climb, coming labor shortages in the U.S. will make meeting these needs an even greater challenge. The TransferBot is an in-hospital solution that benefits both patients and hospital staff. Designed especially to comfortably lift, carry and set down the injured, the Transferbot leverages what we have learned about human lifting from the BEAR robot, but is optimized for the hospital environment. Able to negotiate tight spaces in semi-private rooms, the TransferBot has specially-designed software systems that aid the operator in performing safe, successful repositioning and transfers. The HomeBEAR The HomeBEAR is an advanced, semi-autonomous robot that is able to perform many useful functions for its user with little or no remote human operation, in an environment where it is either shared or used by a single person.
The HomeBEAR robot performing one of many functions to assist its user. HomeBEAR Applications
For more information on the patent-pending BEAR, please see frequently-asked questions about the BEAR.
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The BEAR Robot™
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