Agent-based communication systems for elders using a reminiscence therapy

Abstract

An ageing society has rapidly expanded and the number of people aged over 65 has increased. Although a dialogue communication between persons is efficient for elderly people with dementia, the problem is that the number of caregivers is less and the elderly people do not have enough dialogue communications. Also, a reminiscence therapy is effective for dementia. The method of the reminiscence therapy is to activate brains by telling his/her experience and past life memories. Therefore, this paper proposes an agent-based communication system using questions about personal histories as topics of dialogue communications. We examine how dialogues of dementia patients are induced or continued by questions and answers and which topics are effective for dementia patients. From experimental results, it turns out that especially 'Place of Birth', 'Favourite song', 'Favourite food' and 'Hobby/Favourite' are interesting questions. Moreover, 'question topic' is more efficient than 'question difficulty level'.