Older adults with dementia are increasing in Japan. Because of this, â??communication\nrobotsâ? are being introduced into nursing settings to substitute\nfor the shortage of nurses and other care workers. Our research group is currently\ndeveloping a humanoid nursing robot with caring function (HNR),\nspecifically for the functional and practical use of older adults with dementia.\nThe purpose of this study was to clarify improvement points of the current\nfunction of humanoid robotâ??s (Pepper) (SoftBank Robotics) dialog pattern for\nimproving optimal communication between humanoid robot and older adults.\nDialog programs were installed in the humanoid robot Pepper, including the\napplication program Care Prevention Gymnastics Exercises for Pepper (Pepper-\nCPGE) that was made by Xing Company, Japan. Dialogues between older\nadults and Pepper-CPGE were recorded by video camera. Data from transcriptions\nof the conversations captured from video and from field notes were\nanalyzed focusing on human-robot interaction. From the recorded scenes and\nconversations, the following were points to be improved: 1) Intonation of the\nwords vocalized by Pepper-CPGE was different from that expected by the\nolder adult resulted in inappropriate responses by the older adult; 2) The\ntiming between Pepperâ??s questions and the responses of the older adult were\nnot timely and did not match (differences in the question-response time),\nwhich lead to confusion among the older adults; and 3) Other surroundings\nolder adults were interested in the dialogue with Pepper-CPGE. However,\nPepper-CPGE cannot communicate with multiple older adults. Improving Pepper-CPGEâ??s ability to communicate with multiple older adults as an older\nadultâ??s dialogue with Pepper-CPGE can cause other older adults to also interact\nnot only with the older adult that Pepper-CPGE is interacting with but\nalso with Pepper-CPGE. This study shows that transactive relations among\nhumanoid robots and older adults can be facilitated. Improving communication\nbetween humanoid robots and the older adults by optimizing a structured\ndialogue is needed to enhance appropriate engagement and participation.\nIt is necessary to create a â??Caring dialogue Databaseâ? for HNRs in order\nto know the patient/client and to share the aesthetic experiences of human-\nrobot interactions. Also, it is important to develop a dialog pattern that\nenables humanoid robots to sympathize with older adults.
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