“You’ll never get rid of humans,” Prof Wendy Moyle says, during a discussion about robots and other technology in aged care and residential homes.

Then, a beat later, she adds: “Well, I don’t think we’ll get rid of humans.”

Moyle runs the social robotics laboratory at Queensland’s Griffith University. Her vision is of technology that helps people stay at home, or can free up carers in residential homes to have more human connection with residents. Supporting humans, rather than replacing them.

But artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic technology are moving quickly. Moyle points to a “virtual hospital” that’s already operating in China.

She says while she is obviously a fan of technology because of her job, engineers are often charging ahead with inventions without involving health professionals and the people who’ll ultimately use it.

An example she points to is a machine that can lift people off the bed, pick them up off the floor, or out of a chair.

“No one wanted to go in it – they were frightened,” she says. “Frightened of the size, of being lifted that high.”

But Australia is facing an ageing population, amid workforce shortages in aged care and chronic issues of neglect and abuse.

Technology is not a magic bullet for those systemic problems, but there are innovations that are improving lives.

The Swiss Alps, as seen from Queensland

In the regional Queensland city of Toowoomba, St Vincent’s Care residents can take a train ride through the Swiss Alps.

Residents get dressed up and turn up to a built replica of France’s Lourdes Station, where an old fashioned sign shows the next train to Switzerland will depart from platform 1 at 9.45am.

Once inside the replica train carriage – the St Vincent’s Express – they can travel through different countries while enjoying an elegant high tea and watching the passing scenery.

The virtual experience mixes the physical replicas of the station, carriages and seats with carefully placed screens showing footage of the real scenery.

“We take boredom away, we take loneliness away, isolation away, and bring in hope,” says Elzette Lategan, the residential care services manager.

Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia says virtual reality can also be used to distract people from pain. It can guide them through relaxation exercises, games, calming scenery, and recreating events and memories, and supporting reminiscence therapy for people living with dementia.

It can improve mood, cognition, memory, problem solving skills and spatial awareness, and may also help reduce pain, anxiety and social isolation, the Adelaide-based organisation says.

Then there are the companion robots that are being used in dozens of places – like Abi, a brightly coloured machine. The company that makes her, Andromeda, say she uses AI and machine learning to recognise faces, understand emotions, and remember conversations.

And she speaks 90 languages, so she can speak to the diverse range of people in homes in their preferred language.

“The VR, the robots … it’s great, particularly because older people in residential care are quite lonely,” Moyle says. “But I think Australia needs to think outside the square.

“There’s been a lot of emphasis on entertainment. There needs to be more of an emphasis on the types of technology that will assist people wanting to stay home.”

“Most of the time people have to go into an aged care facility because they can’t shower or dress themselves, or because they’re incontinent.”

Smart devices getting smarter

For a while now, there have been smart wearables that can monitor a person’s heart rate and temperature, and detect falls.

Now, there are sensors that can sound the alarm if a stove has been left on unattended, and smart speakers that let family members send scheduled messages and reminders.

And at home or in care, Moyle says there are electronic wheelchairs that can help pick someone up, and take them to a shower that turns on automatically. There are beds that roll the person over to make it easier to change them, and mattresses that sense if someone with dementia is about to get out of bed.

People might dislike the idea of a machine that helps spoon-feed people, she says, but that might free up a staff member to talk to them about their lives.

But not everyone is as optimistic about the industry.

A group of University of Sydney researchers studied the agetech companies selling AI for aged care.

The industry and governments are “subscribing to this vision of technological rescue”, some of them wrote in The Conversation. But their research found the narratives “distract from structural problems and reinforce ageism”.

“According to the companies, older people are incidents waiting to happen and data sources to be mined,” they wrote.

AI relies on “stereotypical ideas of older people as technophobic and passive”, and the companies paint the sector as fundamentally broken, with their product the solution, which buries the fact that broader reforms are needed.

“The best role AI can play is through supporting care practices that include and empower older people and staff, centring their voices and experiences,” the researchers wrote.

Moyle agrees that the technology should never replace the human element of care.

“Robots don’t have emotional responses,” she says.

“We’re working on one with soft skin that will give you a hug. But most robots give not a lot of emotional response.”