Can robots improve the quality of life in people with dementia?

Abstract

Dementia refers to a group of neuro-degenerative disorders that cause significant impairments to quality of life and difficulties performing activities of daily living. This symposium brings together representatives from four independent international research teams from Europe and the Asia/Pacific region. The speakers bring together perspectives from psychology, computer science, engineering, and nursing, to share the latest research on how robotic technologies may be able to assist people with dementia. The first speaker presents a survey of system requirements to assist a person with early stage of dementia to stay at home, followed by development and testing of service scenarios implemented on a robot. The second speaker focuses on robots that provide cognitive stimulation for people with dementia, and presents results from tests in real world settings with older patients. The third speaker focuses on how companion robots may help relieve the problem of social isolation in people with dementia, with results from a pre-post study on loneliness and quality of life. The last speaker describes a narrative memory companion to assist people with dementia to remember people and events. Together these four separate projects showcase how robots are being developed to assist with different aspects of dementia, and demonstrates results concerning their acceptability and impact when interacting with people.