VIDEO: Robotics and AI are set to revolutionise aged careAdam Harvey7.30Tue 18 MarTuesday 18 MarchTue 18 Mar 2025 at 9:11amHasVideoDuration: 6 minutes 29 seconds.Watch6mRobotics and AI are set to revolutionise aged careShare optionsFacebookLinkedInX (formerly Twitter)TranscriptADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: There’s a new face at an aged care home in Wagga Wagga, in central New South Wales.Good morning.TEMI:  Hi, I’m Temi, please don’t forget to sign in when you arrive.ADAM HARVEY:  Take me to your leader, or even better, the cafe.TEMI:  Hi, follow me, I will guide you to cafe.ADAM HARVEY:  I think it is that way. I like your hair.The concierge robot at Baptist Care brightens the day for residents like Anne Coia.Is this authorised gaming, Anne.How smart is this robot? What else can it do. Can you order a pizza?ANNE COIA:  Get me a large supreme from Dominos and then go in the bottle shop and get me a bottle of GlenfiddichADAM HARVEY:  This is start of something much bigger. Robotics and AI are coming to aged care.PETRINA GREENWOOD, BAPTIST CARE:  Introducing the robotics I guess is sometimes the initial challenge is getting the robotics in, but then building and building and building to those more deeper use  cases is absolutely being considered not just at Baptist Care, but right across the sector.ADAM HARVEY:  Inside the Wagga home, another robot vacuums and mops - freeing up staff for more rewarding work.KAREN ANNETTS:  More interaction with the residents, which I know, as a cleaner, yeah you’re still cleaning, but you can still speak to the residents as you’re working.ADAM HARVEY:  One obvious question Karen, is, as these robots come into nursing homes and get better and more efficient, won’t they replace people like you?KAREN ANNETTS:  No, I don’t think so. Irreplaceable.ADAM HARVEY: Consigning the drudgery to robots and the more satisfying work to humans could tackle a huge problem in aged care – retaining people. It’s already short staffed, and about 65,000 workers leave the industry each year as demand surges.PROF. MYRIAM AMIELH, AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY:  People who are 85 years old or more, the number is expected to grow times four in the next 40 years.PETRINA GREENWOOD:  It really is about supplementing and really increasing that workforce engagement, so that people stay with us for longer.ADAM HARVEY:  In the basement a third robot does the heavy lifting running laundry bins along a 100-metre corridor between the loading dock and the lifts.Tom Culver is here to oversee his company’s robots.TOM CULVER:  And this one's been great, because it's really getting through tight spaces, even those elevators are very tight.ADAM HARVEY:  In a home full of fragile people, the slightest bump could have dire consequences.TOM CULVER:  Watch the person in the wheelchair please.Nice work, look at that. I am impressed.I've been working on robots for five years, yet to have the robot touch anybody. They're just really built for safety. That's the key job.ADAM HARVEY:  Before the robots’ arrival, the heavy bins were responsible for several workplace injuries.VOX POP:  They are heavier than they look, and this one is only half. So, when you take it three quarters, it goes sideways.So I’m excited, bring it on. I’ll be the first one to use it.ADAM HARVEY:  The coming generation of robots can do a lot more than push laundry baskets.AI programs can already converse with people and in aged care, there’s a demand for interaction.TOM CULVER:  A lot of the time, loneliness is a factor here, andven though there's a lot of people around, you might not necessarily have anything really in common with your with your neighbours. You can interact with a robot and get some latest news and talk to them about topical subjects that you'd like. So that's coming very soon.PETRINA GREENWOOD: Concierge robots can speak many different languages. So definitely, next part of the trial phase will be to have the robots interacting more with residents.ANNE COIA:  Well, I can see the future of robots, getting people out of bed. That's what I see happening.ADAM HARVEY:  The Australian Catholic University is developing a small, wearable device for aged care workers that will take down their observations and fill in paperwork via AI.MYRIAM AMIELH:  It's meant to really help aged care workers, frontline workers, recover more time in their shifts to spend time with residents and less time on a computer entering data.ADAM HARVEY:  Resident Anne Jobson is recovering from a fractured wrist, but her hearing loss makes treatment problematic.JOSEPHINE JEPKOECH: When does the pain come? When do you experience the pain?Don’t worry. I will use this tool to analyse the pain in your face and it can tell us when you are in pain. Is that okay.ANNE JOBSON:  HuhJOSEPHINE JEPKOECH:  I can use the camera to check if you are in pain.ADAM HARVEY:  The software analyses Anne's expression to detect signs of pain.JOSEPHINE JEPKOECH:  So I found two features there, which is the pulling at the corner of the lips, and also the parting of the lips, so those are signs, two signs of pain, in the category of face.ADAM HARVEY:  The program tracks her progress and treatment.Do you trust its assessment for her face for pain.JOSEPHINE JEPKOECH:  I do, I do trust this assessment, I can also compare with what she say, the pain had gone away.ADAM HARVEY:  While the software is embedded as an important part of the nurses’ toolkit, the robots are on a three month trial.PETRINA GREENWOOD:  But the key thing, particularly from the staff, and it is making a difference in their day to day. We'll be getting that feedback from them and just making sure that actually valuable for them.ADAM HARVEY: All right and when are they going to start making coffees?PETRINA GREENWOOD:  That would be nice, actually. What about now would be great.Robotics and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform the nation’s critically short-staffed aged care industry.Adam Harvey and Xanthe Kleinig have this report.