Robotic comfort seals that respond to touch and speech are a step closer to being introduced onto dementia wards following new research by a university in Sussex, according to an article on the Chichester Observer website.
The furry seal "PARO," studied at the University of Brighton, has already shown to bring comfort to people with dementia. But there were concerns about meeting the infection prevention control requirements.
PARO is considered a hard-to-clean device. Hygiene and cleaning tests were carried out over nine months and the results show that PARO was maintained within acceptable limits for NHS Infection Control.
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