Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Oct 30, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 10, 2021
The use of Embodied Conversational Agents to cope with dementia disease: a thematic literature analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
As the world’s population rapidly ages, the number of older adults with cognitive impairment will also increase. Several studies have identified numerous complex needs of people with dementia which assistive technologies still fail to support. Recent trends have led to an increasing focus on the use of Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) as virtual entities able to interact with a person through natural and familiar verbal and nonverbal communication. The use of ECAs could improve the accessibility and acceptance of assistive technologies matching those high-level needs that are not well covered to date.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to map the current state of the art in the field of designing ECAs for patients with dementia, in order to identify current research trends and possible gaps that need to be covered in the near future. Review questions were: a) What research frameworks are used to study the interaction between PWD and ECAs, b) What are the findings and c) Limitations and problems reported?
Methods:
A range of electronic reference databases were searched in July 2020: Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and Embase. Thematic analysis identified recurrent themes across the literature; narrative analyses were written for each theme, identifying concepts and discrepant issues.
Results:
The search process identified 115 records from the databases and study references. After duplicates (n=45) were removed, 70 articles remained for initial screening. A total of 7 articles were included. A thematic analysis of reviewed studies identified major themes and subthemes that led to a traversals discussion on the future steps of research and development in assistive devices.
Conclusions:
It emerged that the field of ECAs is novel and poorly discussed in the scientific community. This study underscored the challenge of synchronizing and harmonizing knowledge, efforts and challenges with the dementia care field and its person-centered paradigm through the User Centered Design approach.
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