Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using a mobile socially assistive robot (SAR) that incorporates approach behaviour (APB) for seniors. The participants were 15 residents in a nursing home. The effectiveness of dialogue with participants was compared for two types of SARs: stationary and mobile. Interactions were also examined to determine the factors that led to the success or failure of the dialogue based on the trajectory of the mobile SARs and observations of the participants’ behaviour with the mobile SARs. The results showed that nine of 15 participants (60 %) engaged in dialogue with mobile SARs, which was twice as effective as stationary SARs. Conversely, some participants could not engage in dialogue when using a mobile SAR. In addition, these participants’ The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores were low. These participants’ successful dialogues were influenced by the angle at which the mobile SAR approached the participant and the length of time the mobile SAR and the participant were face to face. In this study, it was shown that the introduction of mobile SARs in a nursing home could facilitate communication between SARs and residents and further contribute to the quality of life of residents.
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The data supporting the findings of this study can be made available by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Nodoka Yamauchi for useful discussions and Mr.Hiroki Yamashita for technical assistance with the experiments. The authors thank Unimat Retirement Community Co., Ltd., and the participants of the experiments for their co-operation in this study.
Funding
This research was supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under Grant Number JP19he2002016.
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M. Nakamura and M. Nihei conceived the experimental design and supervised the experiments. K. Ikeda conducted the experimental data. K. Kawamura developed the robot and the system for measurement.
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This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Tokyo (19–332).
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The authors declare no conflicts of interest directly relevant to the contents of this manuscript or otherwise.
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Informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study. For participants lacking sufficient decision-making ability, consent was obtained from their legally authorised representatives after due briefing. In addition, written and oral explanations were provided to the head of the nursing-home facility, and their due consent was obtained prior to the commencement of this study.
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All participating authors have provided their due consent for publishing this article in the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems.
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Nakamura, M., Ikeda, K., Kawamura, K. et al. Mobile, Socially Assistive Robots Incorporating Approach Behaviour: Requirements for Successful Dialogue with Dementia Patients in a Nursing Home. J Intell Robot Syst 103, 45 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01497-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01497-w