Aging and Engaging: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of an Online Conversational Skills Coach for Older Adults

Ali, Rafayet; Hoque, Ehsan; Duberstein, Paul R.; Schubert, Lenhart K.; Razavi, Seyedeh Zahra; Kane, Benjamin; Silva, Caroline; Daks, Jennifer S.; Huang, Meghan; Orden, Kim Van

doi:10.1016/j.jagp.2020.11.004

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The user verbal command options in the studies by Tokunaga et al [ 19 , 32 ] were unclear. Only the studies by Ali et al [ 30 ] and Razavi et al [ 31 ] report a short (3-5 turns) open dialogue on a range of topics such as weather, pets, retirement, life goals, growing older, and spirituality. A total of 9 studies also provided little information on their NLP pipeline.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A total of 9 studies also provided little information on their NLP pipeline. Ali et al [ 30 ] and Razavi et al [ 31 ] designed a pattern-matching solution based on gist-clauses , which are a combination of the IVA question and the answer received. Wargnier et al [ 24 ] and Tsiourti et al [ 33 ] used Microsoft speech recognition components for speech recognition, and the utterance text strings were matched with predefined commands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This usability was measured differently between the studies, and the methods and data are provided in Table 3 . Ali et al [ 30 ] and Jegundo et al [ 34 ] used the well-known System Usability Scale [ 40 ]. Wargnier et al [ 24 ] and Tsiourti et al [ 33 ] did not use existing usability questionnaires from the literature, such as the System Usability Scale, but created new usability questionnaires.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, the overview in the study quality evaluation section of this paper enables comparison between the included studies. Although the study objectives and design were generally clear, only 1 (13%) of the 8 studies included a random allocation of participants to separate conditions [ 30 ]. The average number of participants in the studies (n=18) was rather low, and most articles seemed to focus more on the technical development of the system than on a thorough user evaluation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voice-Enabled Intelligent Virtual Agents for People With Amnesia: Systematic Review

et al. 2022

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Background Older adults often have increasing memory problems (amnesia), and approximately 50 million people worldwide have dementia. This syndrome gradually affects a patient over a period of 10-20 years. Intelligent virtual agents may support people with amnesia. Objective This study aims to identify state-of-the-art experimental studies with virtual agents on a screen capable of verbal dialogues with a target group of older adults with amnesia. Methods We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, SCOPUS, Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and CrossRef on virtual agent and amnesia on papers that describe such experiments. Search criteria were ( Virtual Agent OR Virtual Assistant OR Virtual Human OR Conversational Agent OR Virtual Coach OR Chatbot ) AND ( Amnesia OR Dementia OR Alzheimer OR Mild Cognitive Impairment ). Risk of bias was evaluated using the QualSyst tool (University of Alberta), which scores 14 study quality items. Eligible studies are reported in a table including country, study design type, target sample size, controls, study aims, experiment population, intervention details, results, and an image of the agent. Results A total of 8 studies was included in this meta-analysis. The average number of participants in the studies was 20 (SD 12). The verbal interactions were generally short. The usability was generally reported to be positive. The human utterance was seen in 7 (88%) out of 8 studies based on short words or phrases that were predefined in the agent’s speech recognition algorithm. The average study quality score was 0.69 (SD 0.08) on a scale of 0 to 1. Conclusions The number of experimental studies on talking about virtual agents that support people with memory problems is still small. The details on the verbal interaction are limited, which makes it difficult to assess the quality of the interaction and the possible effects of confounding parameters. In addition, the derivation of the aggregated data was difficult. Further research with extended and prolonged dialogues is required.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voice-Enabled Intelligent Virtual Agents for People With Amnesia: Systematic Review

et al. 2022

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“…A more recent breakthrough in the field of healthcare is the use of Embodied Conversational Agents or ECAs. One approach, especially in the field of mental health (see Provoost et al, 2017) has been to use ECAs for diagnostic or remediation purposes, either as partners of social interaction (Georgescu et al, 2014;Tanaka et al, 2017b;Grossard et al, 2020), virtual coaches motivating the user (Torres et al, 2018;Ali et al, 2021), or even for virtual clinical interviews with real patients suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or dementia (Stratou et al, 2015;Philip et al, 2017;Mirheidari et al, 2019). In addition, ECAs have also come to be used as 'virtual patients' (VPs), i.e., representing a patient alone or in a virtual environment and offering the trainee (clinician or student) the possibility to engage in a human-like face-to-face interaction (see Combs and Combs, 2019).…”

Section: Medical Simulation In Healthcare Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Virtual Patients as a Simulation-Based Framework for Training Clinician-Patient Communication Skills: An Overview of Their Use in Psychiatric and Geriatric Care

Chaby¹,

Benamara²,

Pino³

et al. 2022

Front. Virtual Real.

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Clinician-patient communication is essential to successful care and treatment. However, health training programs do not provide sufficient clinical exposure to practice communication skills that are pivotal when interacting with patients exhibiting mental health or age-related disorders. Recently, virtual reality has been used to develop simulation and training tools, in particular through embodied virtual patients (VP) offering the opportunity to engage in face-to-face human-like interactions. In this article, we overview recent developments in the literature on the use of VP-simulation tools for training communicative skills in psychiatry and geriatrics, fields in which patients have challenging social communication difficulties. We begin by highlighting the importance of verbal and non-verbal communication, arguing that clinical interactions are an interpersonal process where the patient’s and the clinician’s behavior mutually shape each other and are central to the therapeutic alliance. We also highlight the different simulation tools available to train healthcare professionals to interact with patients. Then, after clarifying what communication with a VP is about, we propose an overview of the most significant VP applications to highlight: 1) in what context and for what purpose VP simulation tools are used in psychiatry (e.g. depression, suicide risk, PTSD) and geriatrics (e.g., care needs, dementia), 2) how VP are conceptualized, 3) how trainee behaviors are assessed. We complete this overview with the presentation of VirtuAlz, our tool designed to train health care professionals in the social skills required to interact with patients with dementia. Finally, we propose recommendations, best practices and uses for the design, conduct and evaluation of VP training sessions.

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Co-Production of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Digital Platform for Families of Individuals Impacted by Psychosis

Cheng,

Kopelovich,

et al. 2024

J. technol. behav. sci.

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Aging and Engaging: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of an Online Conversational Skills Coach for Older Adults

Cited by 19 publications

References 47 publications

Voice-Enabled Intelligent Virtual Agents for People With Amnesia: Systematic Review

Voice-Enabled Intelligent Virtual Agents for People With Amnesia: Systematic Review

Embodied Virtual Patients as a Simulation-Based Framework for Training Clinician-Patient Communication Skills: An Overview of Their Use in Psychiatric and Geriatric Care

Co-Production of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Digital Platform for Families of Individuals Impacted by Psychosis

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