Assistive Robots for Older Adults: A Human-Robot Interaction Study
Manila Caragiuli, Agnese Brunzini, Chiara Massera, Mara Candelari, Michele Germani · 2025
The progressive population ageing is rapidly transforming our societies. Assistive robots become an opportunity to favour the ageing in place allowing elderlies to remain in the home environment while increasing safety, healthy lifestyles, and remote monitoring for facilitating early intervention in an emergency. The present pilot work aims to compare two different human-robot interactions based on both usability and user-experience standardized scales and semi-structured interviews administered to a group of 10 elderly people to identify the factors affecting technology acceptance. The use of two different robots based on touch screen (Temi) and oral communication (Ohmni) equipped with specific sensors is investigated in four different scenarios with both clinical and social purposes: cognitive stimulation, nutritional control, physiological parameters monitoring, and entertainment. The study's findings report that the initial distrust in innovative and unusual technologies may be reduced by approaching them in a controlled environment. However, the perception of the usefulness and usability of robots, and more generally of technology, is also influenced by the personal nature of the user and the reason for use. Indeed, robots appear to be a threat to older adults’ independence, especially those who stay fit and behave independently. Concerning the robots’ interaction modes, most users preferred a combined interaction based on both vocal and written communication to make up for hearing or visual problems. Moreover, a robot exhibiting both a static and dynamic mode was preferred. However, further studies should be devoted to the optimization of the adopted technologies considering the users’ feedback for improved adaptivity and technology acceptance.