JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Asking questions is common in conversation, and while asking questions, we need to listen carefully to what others say and consider the perspective our questions adopt. However, difficulties remain in verifying its effect on older adults’ cognitive function owing to the lack of a standardized system to conduct experiments in daily life.

Objective:

This study examined the intervention effect of cognitive training moderated by robots on healthy older adults. In the intervention program, the participants listened to a story related to a photo displayed on the tablet screen and subsequently asked questions about it to the robots within a predetermined time. A focus on the feasibility of the intervention at the participant's home was also maintained.

Methods:

We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 81 adults over 65 years of age. Participants were randomized into two groups: the intervention group received sessions where participants listened to photo-integrated stories and asked questions to the robots (n=40), and the control group received sessions where participants listened to photo-integrated stories and only thanked the robots for confirming participation (n=41). The participants participated in 12 dialogue sessions for 2-3 weeks. Cognitive functioning scores measured before and after the intervention were compared between the two groups.

Results:

The improvement in category fluency in the intervention group was higher than that in the control group (P = .09), which is partially consistent with previous studies. There was no significant intervention effect on the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-Japanese score (P = .31). Additionally, our study was completed with no loss of participants at follow-up.

Conclusions:

We confirmed that the intervention program has a potentially reliable cognitive training effect on category fluency in healthy older adults. The feasibility of home-based interventions was also demonstrated, and we identified issues that need to be improved in the future, such as setting up more efficient session themes for cognitive training to develop more effective intervention programs. Clinical Trial: The studies are registered at Clinical Trials (UMIN000039489)