Print Email Facebook Twitter Design of an Integrated Robotic Reminder System for People with Dementia Title Design of an Integrated Robotic Reminder System for People with Dementia Author Vogel, Ricardo (TU Delft Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science; TU Delft Interactive Intelligence; TU Delft Intelligent Systems) Contributor Neerincx, M.A. (mentor) Broz, F. (mentor) Murray-Rust, D.S. (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Computer Science Date 2024-04-15 Abstract Several useful technologies to help people with dementia already exist. Robotic pets, for example, have been shown to alleviate negative symptoms associated with dementia. Most robotic pets, however, only have pet-like functionality. This is useful on its own, but adding additional care functionality would be helpful. A different useful tool for people with dementia is reminder systems. These systems can help them remember to do important daily tasks, like eating meals and taking medicine. These systems, however, usually use a phone as a medium. The user might leave their phone in another room, and if they do not take it to the location where the task is to be completed, they cannot check what the reminder was for. This thesis aims to combine these two systems, and presents the design of an integrated robot reminder system for people with dementia who live at home. It aims to address the problem of people with dementia forgetting important things, improve their quality of life, and reduce the stress experienced by their informal caregivers. The system consists of an animal-like robotic pet, which delivers reminders for important activities of daily living directly to the user with dementia. It guides them to a location in the house, where a screen tells them what the reminder is for. Through sensors placed in the house, the system can automatically detect whether some reminders have been completed, and can use contextual clues to send reminders at the best time. The research question for this thesis is “How can an integrated robotic reminder system effectively support people with dementia living at home in completing daily tasks while alleviating stress of their informal caregiver?”Three research topics are explored in the thesis. The first topic is that of value-sensitive design. The two main user groups, people with dementia and caregivers, both have values they want to see reflected in the system. Sometimes, these values may clash. The conflict between these values is explored in this thesis. Secondly, the interaction between the robot and the person in the context of a reminder system is researched. It should be clear to a user that the robot is trying to convey a reminder. The third topic relates to the software architecture and software engineering requirements. Private data should be stored securely, and the requirements should be written to make future development easy. Recommendations are made regarding the ideal setup of the system, ensuring proper security and usefulness. These technical choices were validated and improved through two interviews with experts in the field of privacy.The system was designed through an iterative process. In order to improve the system and validate its acceptability, two design workshops were held, one with professional caregivers and one with people with dementia living in a care home. We showed them a high-fidelity robot prototype, and showed the caregivers a user interface prototype for a caregiver app. These workshops showed that the combination of the robot and the reminder functionality was appealing, though not everyone was as interested. Subject DementiaAssistive RobotsReminder SystemValue AlignmentHuman-Robot InteractionAssistive Technology To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2f9b1db8-6cbb-40fb-8947-952ca2032c4c Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2024 Ricardo Vogel Files PDF MSc_Thesis_Ricardo_Vogel.pdf 22.71 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:2f9b1db8-6cbb-40fb-8947-952ca2032c4c/datastream/OBJ/view