UCDD Working To Launch Robotic Animals Program For Those With Memory-Related Illnesses

The Upper Cumberland Development District is working to launch a robotic animals program for those with memory-related illnesses.

Family Caregiver Coordinator Clare Farless said that the robotic animals offer the same companionship as real animals, but without the responsibility of feeding them or walking them.

“Because we know that animals are great therapy,” Farless said. “And that’s basically what this program is trying to do. It’s trying to give therapy-type animals to our dementia patients.”

Farless said that these robotic animals come as a part of the UCDD’s Music Intervention Navigating Dementia Symptoms (M.I.N.D.S.). She said that  funding for the robotic animals comes from a grant for this program, which uses music in Alzheimer’s and dementia care.

Farless said that the animals will first be offered to participants in the M.I.N.D.S. program with hopes of expanding it.

“The grant that we’re able to purchase these animals through, we’re currently in its last stage right now,” Farless said. “So the ending of the money that we have, we’re going to use that to sustain the program in the future. So once we finish this set of classes we’re going to offer it to our participants and then we’ll tell them that we’ll be able to launch this July 1, we’ll get everyone ready, and then on July 1, we’ll be able to implement the robotic animals.”