"The harp seal named Paro has white fur, blinking eyes and wagging flippers. For a medical device, it is awfully snuggly. No mere stuffed animal, Paro is a $6,000 interactive robot designed to soothe and comfort those who stroke its fuzzy head. Just don't try to make Paro swim. This summer at the Sunny View Retirement Community in Cupertino, nurses are running a pilot program to test whether Paro can be used as a therapeutic tool, instead of medication, to improve socializing and reduce anxiety among the center's elderly. Several residents have Alzheimer's, dementia and other forms of cognitive decline. One recent morning, Dorothy "Joc" Hartley, 88, sat withdrawn in a chair, her body still and head down. But when Paro was placed in her arms, she began stroking it and smiling. "You're so beautiful," she murmured. The seal looked up at her. "Mewww!" Paro isn't hard to adore. It wiggles and squeaks. It squeals angrily when held upside-down, and shakes its head when its whiskers are touched. What makes this liveliness possible are two 32-bit CPUs and sensors that recognize touch, light, sound, temperature and position. Paro draws its energy not from fish, but a battery charger." - Anne Bouey

"Invented by the Japanese company AIST and first sold in Japan in 2005, Paro arrived in the United States in late 2009. To the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the cuddly creature is a biofeedback device and a class II medical device, the same category that spans powered wheelchairs and some pregnancy tests. About 500 Paros have been sold in the U.S., and up to 4,000 worldwide, said Christine Hsu, manager for Paro Robots in Illinois. Renting a Paro costs $200 a month, buying one costs $6,000, and insurance does not cover it. But to JoAnn Gilbert, Sunny View's director of health services, the two Paros on loan at the home so far demonstrate that they deserve to be covered by insurance or Medicare, just as medication or physical therapy would be. "If every time you go someplace it seems unusual to you, it brings on fear. That's what brings on abnormal behaviors," she said. "We use Paro for social interaction, stress reduction, anxiety reduction. We use it to combat self-isolation, to give them something to engage with." Some studies back up Gilbert's observation. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study in two nursing homes found that Paro provoked curiosity, conversation and acts of affection among residents. Other geriatric experts question the ethics of letting the elderly rely on a robot for emotional support. So far, Paro is fitting in better at Sunny View than the last robotic pet: an interactive toy dog, Biscuit, made by Hasbro. Biscuit broke when a resident, unaccustomed to the sight of a dog on a table, swept it to the ground in one fell swoop. As Gilbert explained it, "There's a lot of fear of dogs, but nobody is afraid of a seal. That's one of the reasons (the inventor) picked a seal." "Plus," she added, "he's cute." - Anne Bouey

great idea, my mom would have loved this towards the end - maʀtha