Exercising with an "Iron Man": Design for a Robot Exercise Coach for Persons with Dementia

• Main Authors: Cooney, Martin, Pihl, Jacob, Larsson, Hanna, Orand, Abbas, Aksoy, Eren Erdal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 26-09-2019
• Subjects: Computer Science - Computers and Society; Computer Science - Robotics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1909.12262

Socially assistive robots are increasingly being designed to interact with
humans in various therapeutical scenarios. We believe that one useful scenario
is providing exercise coaching for Persons with Dementia (PwD), which involves
unique challenges related to memory and communication. We present a design for
a robot that can seek to help a PWD to conduct exercises by recognizing
behaviors and providing feedback, in an online, multimodal, and engaging way.
Additionally, in line with a mid-fidelity prototyping approach, we report on
some feedback from an exploratory user study using a Baxter robot, which
provided some confirmation of the usefulness of the general scenario;
furthermore, the results suggested the degree of a robot's feedback could be
tailored to provide impressions of attentiveness or fun. Limitations and
possibilities for future improvement are outlined, touching on deep learning
and haptic feedback, toward informing next designs.