Long-Term Exercise Assistance: Group and One-on-One Interactions between a Social Robot and Seniors

Abstract

For older adults, regular exercises can provide both physical and mental benefits, increase their independence, and reduce the risks of diseases associated with aging. However, only a small portion of older adults regularly engage in physical activity. Therefore, it is important to promote exercise among older adults to help maintain overall health. In this paper, we present the first exploratory long-term human–robot interaction (HRI) study conducted at a local long-term care facility to investigate the benefits of one-on-one and group exercise interactions with an autonomous socially assistive robot and older adults. To provide targeted facilitation, our robot utilizes a unique emotion model that can adapt its assistive behaviors to users’ affect and track their progress towards exercise goals through repeated sessions using the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS), while also monitoring heart rate to prevent overexertion. Results of the study show that users had positive valence and high engagement towards the robot and were able to maintain their exercise performance throughout the study. Questionnaire results showed high robot acceptance for both types of interactions. However, users in the one-on-one sessions perceived the robot as more sociable and intelligent, and had more positive perception of the robot’s appearance and movements.

Emotion Detection and Student Engagement in Distance Learning During Containment Due to the COVID-19

“…This task can be taken up in future work. This article does not cover engagement classified as human-robot interaction 28 .…”

An analysis of design recommendations for socially assistive robot helpers for effective human-robot interactions in senior care

“…In, 93 the Salt robot autonomously facilitated exercise sessions for older adults living in LTC. The robot guided the participants through multiple repetitions of upper-body exercises, using its n th order Markov model to determine its emotional response (happy, interested, sad, worried).…”