  One of the major areas where social robots are finding their place in society
is for healthcare-related applications. Yet, very little research has mapped
the deployment of socially assistive robots (SARs) in real settings. Using a
documentary research method, we were able to trace back 279 experiences of SARs
deployments in hospitals, elderly care centers, occupational health centers,
private homes, and educational institutions worldwide from 33 different
countries, and involving 52 different robot models. We retrieved, analyzed, and
classified the functions that SARs develop in these experiences, the areas in
which they are deployed, the principal manufacturers, and the robot models that
are being adopted. The functions we identified for SARs are entertainment,
companionship, telepresence, edutainment, providing general and personalized
information or advice, monitoring, promotion of physical exercise and
rehabilitation, testing and pre-diagnosis, delivering supplies, patient
registration, giving location indications, patient simulator, protective
measure enforcement, medication and well-being adherence, translating and
having conversations in multiple languages, psychological therapy, patrolling,
interacting with digital devices, and disinfection. Our work provides an
in-depth picture of the current state of the art of SARs' deployment in real
scenarios for healthcare-related applications and contributes to understanding
better the role of these machines in the healthcare sector.
