Related papers: A Simulated Experiment to Explore Robotic Dialogue…
In this paper, the robot-assisted Reminiscence Therapy (RT) is studied as a psychosocial intervention to persons with dementia (PwDs). We aim at a conversation strategy for the robot by reinforcement learning to stimulate the PwD to talk.…
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…
This study explores a novel approach to advancing dementia care by integrating socially assistive robotics, reinforcement learning (RL), large language models (LLMs), and clinical domain expertise within a simulated environment. This…
The phrase "most cruel and revolting crimes" has been used to describe some poor historical treatment of vulnerable impaired persons by precisely those who should have had the responsibility of protecting and helping them. We believe we…
Effective dementia caregiving requires training and adaptive communication, but assistive AI and robotics are constrained by a lack of context-rich, privacy-sensitive data on how people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias…
As general purpose robots become more capable, pre-programming of all tasks at the factory will become less practical. We would like for non-technical human owners to be able to communicate, through interaction with their robot, the details…
As the aging of society continues to accelerate, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) has received more and more attention from not only medical but also other fields, such as computer science, over the past decade. Since speech is considered one of…
Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) is critical for timely intervention, yet most diagnoses are delayed until advanced stages. While comprehensive patient narratives are essential for accurate diagnosis,…
People living with dementia (PLWDs) face progressively declining abilities in medication management-from simple forgetfulness to complete task breakdown-yet most assistive technologies fail to adapt to these changing needs. This…
In this work, an online survey was used to understand the acceptability of humanoid robots and users' needs in using these robots to assist with care among people with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), their family…
Robots operating in real-world environments must reason about possible outcomes of stochastic actions and make decisions based on partial observations of the true world state. A major challenge for making accurate and robust action…
Uncertainty plays a central role in spoken dialogue systems. Some stochastic models like Markov decision process (MDP) are used to model the dialogue manager. But the partially observable system state and user intention hinder the natural…
As social robots are increasingly introduced into dementia care, their embodied and interactive design may blur the boundary between artificial and lifelike entities, raising ethical concerns about robotic deception. However, it remains…
Societies worldwide are rapidly entering a super-aged era, making elderly health a pressing concern. The aging population is increasing the burden on national economies and households. Dementia cases are rising significantly with this…
For widespread deployment in domains characterized by partial observability, non-deterministic actions and unforeseen changes, robots need to adapt sensing, processing and interaction with humans to the tasks at hand. While robots typically…
This study presents the development and testing of a conversational speech system designed for robots to detect speech biomarkers indicative of cognitive impairments in people living with dementia (PLwD). The system integrates a backend…
We present Speaking Memories, a distributed, stakeholder-in-the-loop robotic interaction platform for personalized cognitive exercise support. Rather than a single robot-centric system, Speaking Memories is designed as a generalizable…
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder marked by progressive declines in memory and language that reduce independence in daily life, motivating socially assistive robotic support. This paper presents MEMOR-E, a mobile quadruped…
Individual cognitive stimulation therapy (iCST) is a non-pharmacological intervention for improving the cognition and quality of life of persons with dementia (PwDs); however, its effectiveness is limited by low adherence to delivery by…
Assistive systems for persons with cognitive disabilities (e.g. dementia) are difficult to build due to the wide range of different approaches people can take to accomplishing the same task, and the significant uncertainties that arise from…