Exploring the applicability of the socially assistive robot Stevie in a day center for people with dementia

Abstract

Socially assistive robots have the potential to help keep people with dementia cognitively active and entertained. This is important for their wellbeing. We explored staff perceptions of the acceptability of a new humanoid robot, Stevie, in an adult day care center for people with dementia. Stevie was deployed over 2 weeks in the day center to entertain 40 guests with dementia with three activities: (i) musical bingo, (ii) quizzes, and (iii) meet and greet. Nine staff members were asked what went well, whether the robot operated as expected, experiences of any technical issues, and the extent to which it hindered or aided their duties. Staff also rated guest engagement, guest enjoyment, and whether they were able to spend more time with guests. The sessions were successfully delivered. Staff reported that Stevie operated as expected, guest engagement with the robot was high, interactions with the robot were natural and the robot's novelty helped engagement. Use of the robot gave staff more time to attend to guests' needs. Suggested improvements included improvements to the robot's voice and adding a pause function during activities. With greater autonomy and/or extended use of its telepresence functionality, use of Stevie could become cost effective in such settings. Metropolitan University, and Conor McGinn worked for Trinity College Dublin. Angela Downing is Owner and Manager of the Reflections Day Center in Camborne, Cornwall, hosted the study and supervised the care staff and day center guests. Conor McGinn is the co-inventor of the Stevie Robot providing technical support in the set up of the study but was not involved in the operation or data collection for the evaluation. CONFLICT OF INTERESTConor Mc Ginn is a co-inventor of Stevie. However, he was not directly involved with the data collection and analysis of this study.

In the Arms of a Robot: Designing Autonomous Hugging Robots with Intra-Hug Gestures

“…Depression in older adults is extremely common as they can struggle with medical illness, cognitive dysfunction, physical separation from their friends and family members, or a combination of the three [68]. Robots like Paro [19] and Stevie [67] show that not only is there great interest in robots being used with older adults, but that they can be beneficial to these users. Considering the proxemic work of Mead and Matarić [47] could help us enable HuggieBot to perform both robot-and human-initiated hugs, making the entire experience more natural and hopefully more enjoyable for users.…”

An analysis of design recommendations for socially assistive robot helpers for effective human-robot interactions in senior care

“… 48 Character-like SARs with a head but without arms include Pearl 49 and iCat 50 (mouth and eyes), and Kompai 51 and Max 52 (eyes but no mouth). Some applications of character-like SARs are ADL assistance such as Casper for meal assistance 29 ; cognitive stimulating games with Stevie 53 ; monitoring for falls and providing calendar reminders using Max 54 ; and exercise facilitation with NAO, 46 , 55 and Bandit. 45 …”

“…All types of shells are used to prevent robot damage from external factors. SARs with hard plastic shells are Pepper, 42 Casper, 36 ARI, 43 Stevie, 53 Pearl, 49 Kompai, 51 Max, 52 Hobbit, 48 Bandit, 45 Baxter, 58 iCat, 50 and NAO. 46 Tangy 56 has an aluminum structure which suits its machine-like appearance.…”

Affective Robotics For Wellbeing: A Scoping Review

“…9 of the studies (37.5%) exploited a semi-autonomous affective robot. For example, in [14], the robot could automatically execute the task interaction, but the research controlled its navigation in the care center. The other 9 studies (37.5%) adopted a fully autonomous affective robot (see Fig.…”

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