Emotional robots as health promotion in dementia care : group activity with a seal robot in nursing homes

Abstract

In recent years there has been shift in how to approach treatment of people with dementia towards stimulating social, personal and physical resources in order to promote health and well-being. Promoting health in nursing home (NH) residents with moderate or severe dementia is considered challenging for staff of several reasons. Often are challenges related to residents’ behaviors, such as symptoms of restlessness, agitation and depression, but also inactive behavior, making motivation for conducting various activities in daily life challenging. Amongst Norwegian NH residents 80 % have dementia with agitation and depression as the most common symptoms. Due to limited effects from medical treatment, but also harmful side-effects, non-pharmacological treatment is recommended as first choice worldwide. The increasing number of people with dementia and the inverse development of number of care staff, has led to development of a variety of welfare technology mainly for enhancing independent living at home and produce effective execution of health-related tasks for care staff. In addition, welfare technology as an alternative way to assist people socially and emotionally is developed. Robots resembling pets are made for interaction for elderly with dementia, in order to provide comfort and enhance well-being. \nThe overall aim of the thesis was to investigate possible effects from an intervention with the baby harp seal robot Paro in a group activity for people with dementia aiming to promote health in this patient group. We investigated effects on symptoms of agitation, depression, use of psychotropic drugs and on quality of life (QoL). In addition, behaviors shown by participants during Paro-activity was investigated in terms of prevalence and development during the intervention period. We also investigated differences according to dementia severity. The trial was conducted as a cluster randomized controlled trial and was conducted in three periods during 2013 and 2014: Ten special care units (SCU) from the three Norwegian counties Østfold, Vestfold and Akershus were recruited to participate. Each SCU recruited up to six participants forming a group allocated to receive Paro-activity or being a control group having “treatment as usual”. Paro-activity was conducted biweekly during 12 weeks.