Robot as good as real dog for Senior Citizens?

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A friendly dog can make older people feel less isolated and it appears to make little difference if that wagging tail belongs to a robot doggie or the real thing. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri compared a 35-pound dog named Sparky with AIBO, a far-from-lifelike robot dog, to see how residents of three U.S. nursing homes would respond. The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally well in terms of alleviating loneliness and causing residents to form attachments. Pets have been shown to help older people feel less isolated. They improve loneliness considerably. But many senior citizens are too frail to care for a pet or have had to give up their own animals when they went to the nursing home. They really miss that bond. Even though researchers found that these robotic dogs helped the elderly all production was stopped but they are working on a similar robot. Since, like it says this was an awesome idea for Seniors who are unable to care for a pet or have one where they live don't you think this was something that they should have kept making and offered to the public? Do you think it was a good idea? Check out a video of Aibo playing with a cat on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKAeihiy5Ck