Demand for older-adult and patient care is growing rapidly as populations age worldwide. Foundation models are increasingly being integrated into robots and interactive agents, with the promise of more flexible communication and personalized assistance. However, care settings require reliable and workflow-compatible systems with accountable human oversight, and it remains unclear whether current embodied systems can translate technical advances into clinical impact. This Perspective synthesizes foundation model-based care robots across three areas: design features, user experience, and evidence for care-related outcomes. Current systems most commonly use foundation models as conversational and reasoning layers within voice-centered socially assistive embodiments, while multimodal grounding and physical autonomy remain limited. Empirical evaluations report positive usability and engagement benefits, but reliability failures persist across the interaction pipeline such as hallucinations and conversational breakdowns. Evidence for care impact remains concentrated in proximal outcomes such as cognitive engagement and participation, with limited evidence for validated clinical or care-related changes. We argue that future research should transition toward care-specific evaluation standards, accountable autonomy, and integration into care workflows to support more responsive and responsible care technologies.

翻译：全球人口老龄化背景下，老年人与患者照护需求正快速增长。基础模型日益被整合至机器人与交互式智能体中，旨在实现更灵活的沟通与个性化辅助。然而，照护场景要求系统具备可靠性、与工作流程兼容性及可问责的人类监督，当前具身系统能否将技术突破转化为临床影响仍不明确。本展望文章从设计特征、用户体验及照护效果证据三大维度，系统梳理了基于基础模型的照护机器人。现有系统多将基础模型作为语音型社交辅助机器人的对话与推理层，多模态感知与物理自主能力仍较薄弱。实证评估显示其具备良好的可用性与用户参与度优势，但在交互全链路中仍存在幻觉、对话中断等可靠性问题。关于照护效果的证据集中于认知参与度等近端指标，尚缺乏经过验证的临床或照护相关变化证据。我们认为，未来研究应转向照护专用评估标准、可问责自主性及工作流程整合，以推动更具响应性与责任性的照护技术发展。