JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

New technologies, like socially assistive robots (SAR) may have the potential to support caregivers at home, but the evidence for people with dementia (PWD) in home care is unclear, because a lot of studies are performed in laboratory- or institutional settings mainly using robots in prototype stages.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to explore the effects of the commercially available SAR Pepper on psychosocial and physical outcomes of PWD living at home, including caregivers and dementia trainers.

Methods:

A mixed method study will be performed, including a randomized controlled parallel 2 arm study with a complementary qualitative part. The sample includes 40 PWD living at home and 40 relatives each complemented with five professional caregivers and dementia trainers. The intervention group will receive Coach Pepper (an SAR connected with a theratainment app on a Tablet-PC) and the control group will receive the theratainment app without the SAR. The duration of the intervention will be 3 weeks per household. Data will be collected baseline, during and after the intervention by standardized questionnaires, sensor data of the robot and theratainment app as well as semi-structured interviews, focus groups and observation.

Results:

This study started in May 2019. There are no results.

Conclusions:

The intervention of this study can be seen as a non-pharmacological intervention including cognitive and physical training by a robot. We hypothesize that the robot has a positive effect on the primary outcome motivation (stable or decreased apathy) of PWD. The study will help to further refine SAR for the specific needs of PWD living at home. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrial.gov Identifier: NCT03818217 (https://clinicaltr ials.gov); Registered and last update, 28 January 2019. If there are main changes in the study plan the information in the register will be updated. The principal investigator of the study is Sandra Schüssler.