– Children suffering from cancer and being treated at the Perez Scremini Foundation in Montevideo will have a new companion, a robot seal named PARO who, according to its creator, Japan’s Takanori Shibata, will help kids alleviate the pain of their treatment.
Along those lines, in thinking about what things people might need help with that robots could do instead, like cooking and cleaning, the professor thought about pets that, he said, provide psychological, physiological and social benefits to humans as companions. The professor, who in 2018 traveled to various hospitals in Uruguay with the Japanese ambassador to the South American country, Tastuhiro Shindo, said that the donation of PARO to the Foundation – the only one in Uruguay devoted to treating cancer in children and having a cure rate of 80 percent – will help alleviate the secondary effects of treatment such as chemotherapy.