Currently accepted at: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 21, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 30, 2026
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/85651
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Evaluation of Personas and Daily Activity Maps to Inform Clinical Care and Socially Assistive Robot Training and Design for Persons with Dementia: A Mixed Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
With over 7.2 million persons with dementia needing healthcare, challenges faced by healthcare are growing. As Social Assistive Robots have been in existence for some time, utilizing realistic and comprehensive personas and their daily activity maps to inform robot designers, and in the long-term, nurse caregivers, about predicting agitation and fall risk is a significant undertaking. However, no studies to date have evaluated these personas and their daily activity maps with expert dementia stakeholders.
Objective:
The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore the perspectives of formal and informal dementia caregivers, and robot designers in the use of personas and their daily activity maps to support caregivers in a residential facility in monitoring for agitation and fall risk.
Methods:
In this study, 15 stakeholders were first administered survey questions for which they subsequently provided perspectives on how to improve their scores if warranted.
Results:
In the quantitative survey, using a modified Persona Perception Scale, the average score for the personas was 4.60 out of 5, while the daily activity maps received an average score of 4.54. Individual scores on the subscales of Credibility, Completeness, Clarity, Empathy, and Willingness to Use, for both personas and daily activity maps, ranged from 4.23 to 4.75. In the qualitative analysis, three major themes emerged: 1) Improving human-robot interaction training through greater knowledge of the personal context of persons with dementia; 2) Comprehensive assessment of clinical history and functional capacities as essential for provision of safe and effective interaction for persons with dementia; and 3) Recommendations for improving the clarity and usefulness of the design of personas and their daily activity maps.
Conclusions:
The evaluation of personas and daily activity maps represents a promising avenue for improving the care of persons with dementia, particularly in relation to managing agitation and reducing fall risks. As the global burden of dementia continues to grow, innovative approaches like the use of personas and their daily activity maps may play an important role in enhancing the quality of care for individuals living with dementia. Clinical Trial: N/A
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.