Related papers: The EMPATHIC Project: Mid-term Achievements
This paper outlines the EMPATHIC Research & Innovation project, which aims to research, innovate, explore and validate new interaction paradigms and plat-forms for future generations of Personalized Virtual Coaches to assist elderly people…
The EMPATHIC project aimed to design an emotionally expressive virtual coach capable of engaging healthy seniors to improve well-being and promote independent aging. One of the core aspects of the system is its human sensing capabilities,…
This paper reports on a study conducted as part of the EU EMPATHIC project, whose goal is to develop an empathic virtual coach capable of enhancing seniors' well-being, focusing on user requirements and expectations with respect to…
Artificial companion agents are defined as hardware or software entities designed to provide companionship to a person. The senior population are facing a special demand for companionship. Artificial companion agents have been demonstrated…
Demographic growth and rise in the average age of the population is increasing the demand for the elderly assistance. Health care oriented ambient intelligence technologies are fundamental to support elderly peoples' autonomy. In this…
Coimagination method is a novel approach to support interactive communication for activating three (3) cognitive functions: episodic memory, division of attention, and planning. These cognitive functions are known to decline at an early…
Recent innovations in digital technology offer significant opportunities for older adults to engage in meaningful activities. To investigate older adults' perceptions of using existing and emerging technologies for meaningful activities, we…
Age-related cognitive impairment is generally characterized by gradual memory loss and decision-making difficulties. The aim of this study is to investigate multi level support and suggest relevant helping means for the elderly with mild…
Despite the growing potential of older adult care technologies, the adoption of these technologies remains challenging. In this work, we conducted a focus-group session with family caregivers to scope designs of the older adult care…
Apathy impairs the quality of life for older adults and their care providers. While few pharmacological remedies exist, current non-pharmacologic approaches are resource intensive. To address these concerns, this study utilizes a…
The population of elderly people has been increasing at a rapid rate over the last few decades and their population is expected to further increase in the upcoming future. Their increasing population is associated with their increasing…
We need open platforms driven by specialists, in which queries can be created and collected for long periods and the diagnosis made, based on a rigorous clinical follow-up. In this work, we developed a multi-language robot interface helping…
This paper presents an interdisciplinary PhD project using a humanoid robot to encourage interactive activities for people with dementia living in two aged care facilities. The aim of the project was to develop software and use technologies…
The feeling of anxiety and loneliness among aging population has been recently amplified by the COVID-19 related lockdowns. Emotion-aware multimodal bot application combining voice and visual interface was developed to address the problem…
This paper presents the EACare project, an ambitious multi-disciplinary collaboration with the aim to develop an embodied system, capable of carrying out neuropsychological tests to detect early signs of dementia, e.g., due to Alzheimer's…
Reactions such as gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations are an abundant, naturally occurring channel of information that humans provide during interactions. A robot or other agent could leverage an understanding of such implicit…
We present THERADIA WoZ, an ecological corpus designed for audiovisual research on affect in healthcare. Two groups of senior individuals, consisting of 52 healthy participants and 9 individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI),…
The increasing population of elderly people is associated with the need to meet their increasing requirements and to provide solutions that can improve their quality of life in a smart home. In addition to fear and anxiety towards…
In this paper we describe the requirements and early system design for a smart conversational agent that can assist older adults in the reminiscence process. The practice of reminiscence has well documented benefits for the mental, social…
Beneficial daily activity interventions have been shown to improve both the physical and mental health of older adults. However, there is a lack of robust objective metrics and personalized strategies to measure their impact. In this study,…