Robocare - Book Report/Review Example

Robots used for health care are still in the early stages of development and is incomparable to the human care- giver. This is not to say that with the robots are without benefits for they can provide the elderly with needed assistance; for example, they might delay institutionalization allowing patients to live longer and safer lives in their homes, and also assist parents with children with specialized needs such as autism with options (Lin et al.). Assisted care robots provide parents with children afflicted with conditions such as autism and other challenging medical conditions with assistance pertaining to their rehabilitative or medical care.

However, the replacement of parental care is likely to lead to adverse consequences for the child. For example, assisted care from robots might degrade parenting skills leading to behavioral problems in the development of a child in to adulthood. The use of robots by their very nature requires some level of human supervision, control, monitoring and evaluation, which requires access to data from recordings of a patient/cared for individual. This brings about the question of an individual’s right to privacy.

In the case of a very young child, then their right to privacy should not be violated as they lack the capacity to decide. The content of recordings and other photographic materials could seriously infringe on the child’s right to privacy and even border on the pornographic especially where delicate functions such as wiping of a person’s bottom or peeing. The question of whether such recordings should only be used for medical purposes and released to the parent/guardian or preserved for the child until a time when they can then decide for themselves about what to do with the material arises.

This is even more serious for the adult whose privacy maybe seriously compromised or