Good news: A robot has been hired to care for our old folk

Pepper robot

Care home meals may come with Pepper

Franck Robichon/Epa/REX/Shutterstock

Would you let a robot care for an ageing parent?

That question occurred to me while I was feeding my mother her lunch in a care home, shortly before she died. It wasn’t so much that the care she was getting from humans was bad, but it was inconsistent, and insufficient.

You can do all the mental exercises possible, but what really keeps the brain sharp is the company of other people – preferably intelligent, interesting ones. The staff in care homes can’t provide enough of it because there aren’t enough

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