I can see the past influences of the robotics industry on Japan and the hoped for potential for the future. However, one factor that I feel needs to definitely be addressed is the human element in the use of machines to assist the elderly. Misuse of such machines can be devastating. I speak from experience on this. My father. during the last two years of his life. was forced by circumstance into a nursing home. The care givers didn't, for the most part, care for the people to whom the provided services. In the case of my father, this extended to ignoring his condition as to allow for the development of huge bed sores. These eventually became open wounds through an indiscriminate use of robot lift machines to help 'turn' him in bed. Those operating the machines didn't understand the damage done to the human body. Use of this kind of technology has to be combined with an awareness of how these machines work and what impact they have on the patient.

A couple of things came to mind for my students while reading this article. We have the hour of code coming up soon, as well as our engineering investigations and challenges. I know that I have future scientists and engineers in my class every year, and I think this topic of building machines and programming them is a burgeoning industry with limitless possibilities. I try to introduce my students to a number of ideas throughout the year to plant a seed for their future. This is a great seed! The creativity, problem-solving, engineering, and coding possible in robots are not only a great future careers, they look like a lot of fun! My students will absolutely love researching this, once I introduce it. I will get back to you on this with some lesson plans.

I was looking very forward to this presentation on aging. The issues with population growth and Asian countries trying to control their populations, can only lead to the elderly being left behind. As a World society I think we just have not prepared ourselves mentally and financially for the elderly in our populations getting as old as they are and outliving their ancestors before them. My family is dealing with this right now on several levels. My grandmother is 93, turning 94 in February. She is still physically healthy, but emotionally very fragile. She has lost three sons, one grandson and a husband. Everyday she shares that she just wants to die. Even though she is able to take care of herself for the most part, my aunt had to move in with her to assist in the daily living. My mother in law had to be put into an assisted living home a few years ago. She chose to have children a little later in life and we can’t take care of her because of the cost and we all work full time and still are raising children ourselves. We feel guilty everyday. We try and visit both of these wonderful ladies every week. With our schedules, it is hard.

Cindy Hsiao presentation was very informational. I think what impressed me the most was her work with dementia patients and doctors. As a society our population never grew to the age to experience dementia on these levels until now. We still are ill equipped to deal with the society and the needs of the elderly. She has determined that China and other Asian countries are heading for a huge crisis. There are commercials that have been broadcasted in many of the countries trying to get people to marry and then produce children. There is not enough population to support the growing population of the elderly.

I love that she is beginning to help put systems in place that aide the elderly in checking their own blood and also learning to use technology. Using young people to assist is brilliant! My highschool is right across the street from a senior care facility. We have a program where are kids go to assist the seniors in the technology. It is an awesome thing to see.

This is a worldwide issue, not just exclusive to Asia. Every country is figuring out how to fix this problem they might have seen coming, but ignored. It can’t be ignored any longer.
edited by cgao on 2/7/2017

As I mentioned in the last post I had, my family is hugely impacted right now by the aging that is occurring in my family. We are having to deal with the financial impact and time management issues. We are becoming increasingly stressed because we calculated that my mother in law is running out of money in about 5 years. At that point she will have to move into a rest home run with her medi cal money. These are not great. We are all concerned with this dilemma. Whole countries are going to be dealing with the same issues, but on a huge scale.

Mariko Tamanois gave a fascinating talk about the aging and future of Japan. I’ve heard this talked about before, but the structure of families there, the IE is very interesting and confusing. Because of the structure of a Japanese family and ancestor worship, this topic of aging becomes even more complicated. Japan has changed because now people are choosing to not marry. If people do choose to marry, they marry later in life and don’t always have children or more than one child.

The problems facing Japan and their aged society are the same problems facing most countries. So some possible solutions were proposed by Mariko Tamanois:
Asking moms to have more kids.
Working chances after retirement age, full time not part time
More care facilities
Re-marrying---but this messes with the whole IE system and offers more problems than solutions
Accepting more immigrants
Increasing more elderly living alone due to children leaving

Solutions, maybe. But definitely at a cost somewhere else.