PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA AND SOCIAL ROBOTS: BEST FRIENDS FOREVER?

摘要

People with dementia want to stay at home for as long as possible. Social robots that offer interaction and companionship may help them to fulfill that wish. This study aims to identify how social robots may help people with dementia to stay at home longer and what these social robots should offer. We aim to do this in co-creation with them.Sixteen semi structured individual interviews and four separate focus groups with eight people with dementia and eight informal caregivers were conducted. These focused on what is important to people with dementia, their needs in daily life and which help they would like from social robots. The topic list was illustrated by a video clip and photos of two types of social robots that were presented to people with dementia.Results show that most people with dementia and informal caregivers are positive about the usefulness of social robots in their home environment. Both think that social robots can support people with dementia by providing guidance in daily life. People with dementia see opportunities in using social robots as support for their memory and in managing their daily life. They expect to feel more independent from their informal caregivers. Supportive functions mentioned are: helping people with dementia to structure daily life by giving reminders for appointments and medications, answering repetitive questions, falls detection, answering questions on the whereabouts of a spouse, and making a conversation. Both people with dementia and informal caregivers were interested to participate in further research on social robots.