Studies show dramatic increase in elderly population of Western Europe over the next few decades, which will put pressure on healthcare systems. Measures must be taken to meet these social challenges. Healthcare robots investigated to facilitate independent living for elderly. This paper aims to review recent projects in robotics for healthcare from 2008 to 2021. We provide an overview of the focus in this area and a roadmap for upcoming research. Our study was initiated with a literature search using three digital databases. Searches were performed for articles, including research projects containing the words elderly care, assisted aging, health monitoring, or elderly health, and any word including the root word robot. The resulting 20 recent research projects are described and categorized in this paper. Then, these projects were analyzed using thematic analysis. Our findings can be summarized in common themes: most projects have a strong focus on care robots functionalities; robots are often seen as products in care settings; there is an emphasis on robots as commercial products; and there is some limited focus on the design and ethical aspects of care robots. The paper concludes with five key points representing a roadmap for future research addressing robotic for elderly people.

翻译：研究表明，未来几十年西欧老年人口将急剧增加，这将给医疗系统带来压力。必须采取措施应对这些社会挑战。医疗机器人被研究用于促进老年人的独立生活。本文旨在综述2008年至2021年间机器人技术在医疗领域的最新项目。我们提供了该领域的研究重点概述以及未来研究的路线图。我们的研究始于对三个数字数据库的文献检索。检索对象包括包含“老年护理”、“辅助老龄化”、“健康监测”或“老年健康”等词汇的研究项目，以及任何包含词根“robot”的词汇。本文对筛选出的20个近期研究项目进行了描述和分类。随后，对这些项目进行了主题分析。我们的发现可归纳为共同主题：大多数项目重点关注护理机器人功能；机器人常被视为护理环境中的产品；强调机器人作为商业产品；对护理机器人的设计和伦理方面的关注相对有限。本文最后提出了五个关键点，作为未来面向老年人机器人技术研究的路线图。