single-rb.php

JRM Vol.36 No.4 pp. 871-878
doi: 10.20965/jrm.2024.p0871
(2024)

Paper:

Animated Character Tool for Improved Communication with Elderly People with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Masahide Yuasa

Department of Informatics, Shonan Institute of Technology
1-1-25 Tsujido Nishikaigan, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 251-8511, Japan

Received:
June 17, 2023
Accepted:
January 4, 2024
Published:
August 20, 2024
Keywords:
character, communication, agent, mild cognitive impairment, dementia
Abstract

Owing to the increase in the population of elderly people, the number of people suffering from mild cognitive impairment is increasing in several countries. Furthermore, family members of people with mild cognitive impairment, such as reduced function of memory, reasoning, and decision-making, undergo severe stress owing to difficulties in communicating with them. There are, however, few existing technologies to support learning this type of communication to reduce this stress. This study proposes a tool wherein an animated character resembles the behavior of elderly people with mild cognitive impairment in different scenarios to teach how to communicate with them. Fundamental experiments were conducted to confirm the validity of the proposal tool, and results showed that the tool successfully helped users learn how to communicate with elderly people with mild cognitive impairment. Furthermore, we demonstrated the advantages of using an animated character to depict the behavior of people with mild cognitive impairment. We believe the proposed tool enables the imagination of difficult situations and the understanding of communication with the elderly.

A tool to improve communication

A tool to improve communication

Cite this article as:
M. Yuasa, “Animated Character Tool for Improved Communication with Elderly People with Mild Cognitive Impairment,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.36 No.4, pp. 871-878, 2024.
Data files:
References
  1. [1] K. Higuchi, S. Suzuki, and A. Miyata, “An Implementation of a Conversational Agent for Supporting Users’ Understanding of Dementia Symptoms,” The 80th National Convention of IPSJ, 2018 (in Japanese).
  2. [2] T. Ozeki, T. Mouri, H. Sugiura, Y. Yano, and K. Miyosawa, “Impression Survey and Grounded Theory Analysis of the Development of Medication Support Robots for Patients with Schizophrenia,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.33, No.4, pp. 747-755, 2021. https://doi.org/10.20965/jrm.2021.p0747
  3. [3] M. Nakamura, K. Okajima, Y. Matsumoto, T. Tanaka, K. Iijima, and M. Nihei, “Effectiveness of Continuous Grip Strength Measurement Using Social Assistive Robots on Older Adults at Home,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.33, No.4, pp. 719-729, 2021. https://doi.org/10.20965/jrm.2021.p0719
  4. [4] M. Yuasa, “Social Skills Training System in Social Settings Using Multiple Animated Characters,” Proc. of 2020 Joint 11th Int. Conf. on Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems and 21st Int. Symp. on Advanced Intelligent Systems (SCIS-ISIS), pp. 11-14, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/SCISISIS50064.2020.9322751
  5. [5] S. Uzumano, “Words that people with dementia calm down,” Kodansha, 2016 (in Japanese).
  6. [6] J. Owatari, “Convenient Book for Communication in Nursing Care,” Shoeisha, 2014 (in Japanese).
  7. [7] Watanabe, “Social Skills for Parents and Children,” Saiensu-sha Co., Ltd., 2005 (in Japanese).
  8. [8] K. Fuse, “Convenient Book for Eliciting Conversation in Nursing Care,” Shoeisha, 2013 (in Japanese).
  9. [9] R. Hiramatsu, “Instruction Manual of the Elderly,” SB Shinsyo, 2017 (in Japanese).
  10. [10] T. Nomura, “Communication with the Elderly,” Chuuouhouki, 2014 (in Japanese).
  11. [11] O. Matsuda, “Social Skills for the Elderly and Family,” Saiensu-sha Co., Ltd., 2004 (in Japanese).
  12. [12] Y. Benjamini and Hochberg, “Controlling the False Discovery Rate: A Practical and Powerful Approach to Multiple Testing,” J. of the Royal Statistical Society Series B (Methodological), Vol.57, Issue 1, pp. 289-300, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x
  13. [13] K. Watanabe, A. Togashi, T. Iimura, R. Kujira, J. Kojou, and M. Yuasa, “An animated agent tool for understanding the needs of the elderly,” IEICE Human Communication Group (HCG) Symp. 2018 (in Japanese).

*This site is desgined based on HTML5 and CSS3 for modern browsers, e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera.

Last updated on Dec. 06, 2024