An intervening ethical governor for a robot mediator in patient-caregiver relationship: Implementation and evaluation

Abstract

A robot mediator can enhance the quality of patient care in a health care context. Patients with Parkinson's disease can experience difficulties in precisely expressing their emotions due to the loss of control of their facial musculature, leading to their stigmatization by caregivers. To remedy this challenge, a robot mediator can be inserted into a patient-caregiver relationship. In this context, it is essential to handle the ethical issues of neglect to ensure human dignity. In an earlier paper [19], we proposed an intervening ethical governor (IEG) model, which enables a robot to ethically intervene in a situation where patients or caregivers go across accepted ethical boundaries. In this paper, we show how the IEG model can be implemented and applied in a real robotics system. In addition, by conducting interviews with the target population (adults 60 years of age or older), we evaluate the current intervention rules in the model, discuss potential improvements to the model, and consider uses of the model in real clinical contexts.