Would you give your dying mother a toy seal to keep her company?

Weird article in the NYT about nursing homes using an electronic seal to keep the elderly company. If it works, more power to them, I guess. But it seems a bit odd, giving a lonely person a fake animal to literally keep them company. We're not talking a stuffed animal to hold, we're talking an electronic seal that responds to how you treat it.

Neat idea, or a nasty sign of the times that we're relegated to giving fake pets to the elderly.