Reimagining Robots for Dementia

Abstract

Informal caregivers are the main source of dementia care. Considering the importance of both family caregivers and persons living with dementia (PwDs), this paper explores how these two parties go through their dementia journey and how they envision robots to support them. We adopt a person-centered care approach which views these couples as reciprocal carepartners, rather than as care-givers and care-receivers. We conducted a community-based participatory research study with a dementia advocacy organization to imagine how robots can support these dementia dyads. The contribution of this paper is threefold: First, we introduce a person-centered care approach and show how this new approach reveals the issues of PwDs and carepartners (CPs) as partners and citizens. For example, PwDs' main challenges were not dementia symptoms but the concomitant stigma such as fears of being considered abnormal. This issue has rarely been discussed in HRI. Second, we suggest slow communication as an important robot design feature. When robots can wait for PwDs to proceed with information without judging PwDs' relatively slow response, PwDs feel respected and less stigmatized. Third, we address the importance of paying attention to disagreements between PwDs and CPs about robot design preferences. Considering the interdependency of the two parties, robot design processes should allow the two to negotiate.