P2‐266: Music therapist robot for people suffering from dementia: Longitudinal study

Abstract

Social robots that interact with humans have become an important focus of robotics research. The scientific literature shows that activities, such as music therapy, can help individuals with dementia and cognitive impairment maintain their functional abilities and can enhance quality of life. Very few researches have been done in the area of therapeutic robots for individuals suffering from dementia and cognitive impairment. This work aims to validate that a robotic system can establish a productive interaction with the user, and can serve to motivate and remind the user about specific tasks/cognitive exercises. In addition to serving as a social and cognitive tool, the robot will also be capable of providing detailed reports of patient progress to caretakers, physicians, and therapists. This experiment is designed to improve the participant's attention and consists of a cognitive game called Song Discovery (i.e., find the right button for the song, press it, say the name of the song, and sing along). The music cognitive game is composed of 3 levels: easy level (the robot gives information about the correct button to push), medium level (the robot gives hints about the correct button to push), and difficult level (no hints about the button to press are given). The robot changes its behavior as a function of the user cognitive impairment level and tries to encourage and motivate the users to perform better at the music game task (i.e, minimize the reaction time and the incorrectness of their response). This is a 12 months study in the Silverado Senior Living (USA) care facility. Ten people were recruited, only four were used in our study. The results obtained clearly validate our hypotheses, and show a visible amelioration and decrease in the reaction time and incorrect answers, and a slightly improvement in the cognitive attention and memory recall. This research aims to develop a socially assistive therapist robot for individuals suffering from dementia that will improve through the social interaction their cognitive abilities and therefore their quality of life. More results validating the hypotheses will be available in the near future, as new collaborations with different eldercare facilities are established.