Social Robots for Older Adults with Dementia: A Narrative Review on Challenges & Future Directions

Abstract

Worldwide, approximately 50 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year. Social robots have been a promising approach to supplement human caregivers in dementia care. In this narrative review, we reviewed 62 articles to gain insight into the attitudes and perceptions among people with dementia and other stakeholders worldwide towards using social robots to assist dementia care. Then, we discussed some critical factors and challenges found in these studies influencing people’s perceptions as well as future directions in this field. The primary influencing challenges include cultural factors, users’ limited experiences with technologies, methodological challenges underlying qualitative studies as well as technological malfunctions in current robot system. We further suggested several aspects to be taken into more consideration in future research, including collaborations with other stakeholders, design of individual or group use for dementia care, an adaptive level of autonomy in a social robot and long-term human-robot interaction.