Socially Assistive Robots and Elder People Cognitive Training and Rehabilitation

Zhao Zou, Socially Assistive Robots and Elder People Cognitive Training and Rehabilitation Winner – Western Sydney University VYT local competition (2022) Among the shapely increased dementia population, the aged population occupies a great number. Dementia is not only a big threat to aged people’s lives, but it is also a major cause of financial burden for families with dementia or cognition impairment patients. Compared with real human health caregivers and the actual animals that work for Animal-Assisted Therapy, humanoid robots are less limited by locations, distances, or patient allergy potential. So, how can the robot participate in cognitive training sessions for older adults? We observed that among the plenty of multimodal interaction methods, the “sound” of robots is a modality that may influence users’ emotions. It is known that music and sound therapies are tested to be effective in clinical therapies for depressed and anxious patients. Therefore, we plan to design and modify the auditory parts of the robots and find out how this could work for older people's cognitive rehabilitation.