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LOVOT is a social robot developed by Groove X in Japan. In March Laboratory for Welfare Technologies was about to begin to test the LOVOT with citizens with dementia at nursing homes in Aalborg, Viborg and Skive Municipality in Denmark as the first place in the world. LOVOT was brought to the nursing homes and ready to interact with the citizens. Unfortunately, Covid-19 started spreading, causing Denmark to go into lockdown and stopped us from testing LOVOT at the nursing homes. This has brought us in quite a unique situation: LOVOT being in lockdown together with citizens with dementia at the nursing homes. We are therefore excited to see how LOVOT will interact with the citizens in a lockdown period. The nursing homes now report back that the citizens have enjoyed the LOVOT and it has created joy and a lot of smiles for the citizens with dementia. We have postponed our scientific test supported by the National Health Authorities (Sundhedsstyrelsen) in Denmark to the fall 2020.

Mohammad Reza Naeemabadi, PhD student at Laboratory for Welfare Technology, Aalborg University, has published a study aimed to identify patients’ requirements after a total knee replacement following a self-training rehabilitation program, leading to the design and development of a telerehabilitation program.

Telerehabilitation programs can be employed to establish communication between patients and healthcare professionals and empower patients performing their training remotely. Let us hope it will be used more in the future.

You can see and read the paper here.

One of the objectives of JD TeleTech is to collaborate on developing, testing and evaluating new telehealth, telerehabilitation and welfare technologies between universities, hospitals, municipalities and industry in Japan and Denmark. This has been experienced by two students from Aalborg University, who in the fall of 2019 collaborated with the Japanese company HiSC Nordic ApS.

The collaboration came about when the two students Lahila Diaby and Jens Thorsen, who study masters in Clinical Science and Technology, wanted to make a project about telerehabilitation. As HiSC Nordic develops software for telerehabilitation to diabetic patients, the collaboration between the students and the company was formed. Together the students and HiSC Nordic tested the software on Danish diabetic patients, and the results are expected to be published in an article this summer of 2020.

As it was a collaboration between a Japanese company and a Danish university, the two students joined JD TeleTech in Tokyo, where they presented their project, and talked about the good cooperation they had with HiSC Nordic. This was well received by companies and the healthcare system in Japan, and gave inspiration on how to collaborate between Japan and Denmark in the field of telehealth and telerehabilitation.

LOVOT – a new social robot from Groove X in Japan has arrived to Aalborg University.

The LOVOTs are named Anne and Lars and will be tested for the first time outside Japan in interaction with citizens with dementia this spring in collaboration with Aalborg, Viborg and Skive Municipalities.

The LOVOTs are designed to create joy, has memory (AI), remember people, recognizes own name and has unique personalities that develops over time.

The National Health Authorities in Denmark are funding the project.

Here you can read good advices on the Japanese-Danish Culture and how to navigate – download PDF:

Traveling in Japan and Denmark:
A guide to navigate the two cultures