How and why to keep in contact during lockdown

 A report from Finaland says that people in a later generation, now elderly, have better physical and mental health than a group tested a decade earlier. The article ends with a section reporting that people in care homes improved when talking to robots. 

Robots Versus People

This is a new positive development. The robots cannot give you illnesses such as Covid-19, which, according to current reports in September 2020, hit hardest at care homes. 

Why robot voices?  They could just link up people in care homes with those real people in other rooms. Or other care homes. Or volunteers. 

You would need checks on deterioration, because, in my experience, people enter care homes because they have physical problems and slight dementia, but as they grow older, and get worse, they can be aggressive, or start singing, or shout. So you need to minitor for inappropriate conversations. First the user, then any predatory outsider. This can be done. You could also have a conversation panic button. Or a group, so that a group monitor could quickly turn the microphone off anything ina pprorpriate, and recordings could witness. Zoom meetings for the elderly. 

You could even suggest mutual interest topics, on non-controversial subjects. For example: such as the weather, improved health, happy memories of childhood, building styles. 

You could build into the system prompts to encourage a chatty speaker to stop speaking and allow the other person, or group members, to talk.

Mechanically Monitoring Toastmasters' Speeches

Similarly, using a chatbox for Toastmasters international speakers, we need a mechanized app which listens to your speech, or check the text. We already have a tick box for preparing a speech.

We could have, give you a tick box. Or arrange for the system to ask the speaker to stop and address the audience, or ask the audience for questions.

You could train the moderator of the group to deal with aggression, talking off the point. 

You could add subtitles to translate.

Add reminders to stand up and exercise every half hour.

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