The growing number of older adults places insurmountable load on family members and professional caregivers. Assistive technology with the aid of robots can present a possible solution. The goal of this article was to test a companion robot supporting older adults in their home environments. Eight senior volunteers were involved in the field test. They all lived alone and were self-supporting. The robot was capable of providing cognitive assistance to manage the user's daily routine. Each participant used the robot for 94.9 ± 19.6 days. The primary communication modality was voice communication in their natural language, while the touch screen display was also available for interaction with the robot. The assistance given in daily living was evaluated by subjective (the user's opinion) and objective (logged data) criteria. The most useful and the least reliable robot functions according to the users were the navigation and the verbal communication. Entertainment, locomotion, and weather forecast were the most frequently used functions, while the shopping list was the least popular. The companion robot used in the test was accepted enthusiastically by the senior subjects. Specific robot functions (mainly navigation in the apartment and the speech recognition) require improvement to better accommodate real circumstances.

Innovative technologies can support older adults with or without disabilities, allowing them to live independently in their environment whilst monitoring their health and safety conditions and thereby reducing the significant burden on caregivers, whether family or professional. This paper discusses the design of a study protocol to evaluate the acceptance, usability, and efficiency of the SAVE system, a custom-developed information technology-based elderly care system. The study will involve older adults (aged 65 or older), professional and lay caregivers, and care service decision-makers representing all types of users in a care service scenario. The SAVE environmental sensors, smartwatches, smartphones, and Web service application will be evaluated in people’s homes situated in Romania, Italy, and Hungary with a total of 165 users of the three types (cares, elderly, and admin). The study design follows the mixed method approach, using standardized tests and questionnaires with open-ended questions and logging all the data for evaluation. The trial is registered to the platform ClinicalTrials.gov with the registration number NCT05626556. This protocol not only guides the participating countries but can be a feasibility protocol suitable for evaluating the usability and quality of similar systems.

In the recent decades state of the art technologies appeared in many areas to assist older adults with disabilities. However, one very essential activity of daily life, the toileting remained without any relevant development. The iToilet project of the European Union focuses on the development of an intelligent and motorized toilet system to enable independent toilet use for older adults with disabilities. To begin the development, the user requirements of end-users were assessed by means of focus group interviews and questionnaires. The survey was conducted in Austria and Hungary with the participation of 74 persons in total (41 subjects with movement disorders, 21 caregivers and 12 healthcare managers). From the interviews, the ranking of functions and features based on the number of their mentions was derived. The raw ranking was modulated by the average ratings from the questionnaires that resulted in the final list of priorities. Our results suggest that a safe and intelligent motorized toilet system should have foldable handrails on both sides (especially for wheelchair users), motorized height and tilt adjusting mechanism for the toilet bowl, fixed toilet paper holder on both sides and emergency recognition with call function. Simple operation, storage and retrieval of user specific settings including bowl height, and user identification were also deemed as very important features, while the possibility to control functions with gestures was valued rather low.