Question about the delivery robot at my mom's nursing home in Phoenix

Last month I visited my mom at her care home in Phoenix and a little delivery robot rolls up to her table with her lunch. She's 84 and has mild dementia, and she looked right at it and asked it how its day was going. The thing just beeped and rolled off to the next table, and my mom got quiet for the rest of the meal. I keep thinking about that, how she treated it like a person and it gave her nothing back. Is it wrong to put these things in front of old people who can't tell the difference? Or am I overthinking it?

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joseph_adams6628d ago

That line about her getting quiet for the rest of the meal really got me. I mean, that's the part that matters here, not whether the robot works right. Did she say anything after, or did she just shut down? And has she asked about it since then, or talked about it like it was a person she met? I'm asking because if she keeps bringing it up, that tells you something about what she lost in that moment, and if she forgot about it by dinner, maybe that changes how you think about it too.

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