Alle Publikationen
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2018
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(2018): ROBIN, a Telepresence Robot to Support Older Users Monitoring and Social Inclusion: Development and Evaluation. In: Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association 24 (2), S. 145-154. DOI: 10.1089/tmj.2016.0258
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2016.0258 Abstract: INTRODUCTION This article describes an enhanced telepresence robot named ROBIN, part of a telecare system derived from the GIRAFFPLUS project for supporting and monitoring older adults at home. ROBIN is integrated in a sensor-rich environment that aims to continuously monitor physical and psychological wellbeing of older persons living alone. The caregivers (formal/informal) can communicate through it with their assisted persons. Long-term trials in real houses highlighted several user requirements that inspired improvements on the robotic platform. The enhanced telepresence robot was assessed by users to test its suitability to support social interaction and provide motivational feedback on health-related aspects. METHODS Twenty-five users (n = 25) assessed the new multimodal interaction capabilities and new communication services. A psychophysiological approach was adopted to investigate aspects like engagement, usability, and affective impact, as well as the possible role of individual differences on the quality of human-robot interaction. RESULTS ROBIN was overall judged usable, the interaction with/through it resulted pleasant and the required workload was limited, thus supporting the idea of using it as a central component for remote assistance and social participation. Open-minded users tended to have a more positive interaction with it. CONCLUSIONS This work describes an enabling technology for remote assistance and social communication. It highlights the importance of being compliant with users' needs to develop solutions easy to use and able to foster their social connections. The role of personality appeared to be relevant for the interaction, underscoring a clear role of the service personalization.
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(2018): The use of assistive technologies after stroke is debunking the myths about the elderly. In: Topics in stroke rehabilitation 25 (1), S. 28-36. DOI: 10.1080/10749357.2017.1376845
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10749357.2017.1376845 Abstract: Background Through the concept of ageism, we highlight and explain how the society prejudices the elderly. WHO classifies 12 most common stereotypes pertaining to old age. Elderly people are being excluded from social life due to their chronological age rather than any actual reduced physical and/or mental ability. Some of these stereotypes are directly related to the (un)willingness and the ability of the elderly to use technology in everyday life. Objectives The study presented in this article aims to explain the phenomenon of technology use among elderly people who had had a stroke. Method A qualitative study, namely a qualitative content analysis, was performed. Six in-depth interviews with older people who have suffered a stroke were conducted and explored their views on the daily use of technology. Results All older people included in this study used different technologies, which have been divided into technologies that support mobility, technologies for personal care, technologies that support household chores, and technologies for maintaining a social network. An elderly person's attitude toward the use of technology is connected to their social network and assistance from professional staff, as well as the severity of their physical disability. We have found that using various technologies, elderly people are developing various coping strategies. Conclusions After a stroke, a certain degree of physical deterioration can be expected. Nonetheless, our participants managed to compensate for this also with the help of assistive devices and technologies, which negates the myth of simply "surrendering" to the aging process.
2016
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(2016): Promoting Interactions Between Humans and Robots Using Robotic Emotional Behavior. In: IEEE Trans Cybern 46 (12), S. 2911-2923. DOI: 10.1109/TCYB.2015.2492999
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TCYB.2015.2492999 Abstract: The objective of a socially assistive robot is to create a close and effective interaction with a human user for the purpose of giving assistance. In particular, the social interaction, guidance, and support that a socially assistive robot can provide a person can be very beneficial to patient-centered care. However, there are a number of research issues that need to be addressed in order to design such robots. This paper focuses on developing effective emotion-based assistive behavior for a socially assistive robot intended for natural human-robot interaction (HRI) scenarios with explicit social and assistive task functionalities. In particular, in this paper, a unique emotional behavior module is presented and implemented in a learning-based control architecture for assistive HRI. The module is utilized to determine the appropriate emotions of the robot to display, as motivated by the well-being of the person, during assistive task-driven interactions in order to elicit suitable actions from users to accomplish a given person-centered assistive task. A novel online updating technique is used in order to allow the emotional model to adapt to new people and scenarios. Experiments presented show the effectiveness of utilizing robotic emotional assistive behavior during HRI scenarios.
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(2016): Ethische Herausforderungen zum Einsatz sozial-assistiver Roboter bei älteren Menschen. In: Zeitschrift fur Gerontologie und Geriatrie 49 (4), S. 303-307. DOI: 10.1007/s00391-016-1066-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00391-016-1066-5 Abstract: Socially assistive robots are increasingly discussed as solutions in care and domestic use for the support of senior adults; however, this raises ethical questions which hitherto have not been considered or were not predictable. The most important questions are those of privacy and data protection, safety and responsibility as well as involvement of vulnerable persons and deception. Consequently, the ethical principles of nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy and fairness should be transposed to robotics. Clear answers and solutions are not yet available for every ethical challenge in robotics; however, the development of ethical guidelines for deployment of robots and research in the field of social service robots (SSR) are essential steps in order to embed ethics into dealing with socially assistive robots. This article provides some practical suggestions on this issue from a robotics project.
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(2016): Sollten Assistenzroboter eine "Persönlichkeit" haben? : Potenzial simplifizierter Roboterpersönlichkeiten. In: Zeitschrift fur Gerontologie und Geriatrie 49 (4), S. 298-302. DOI: 10.1007/s00391-016-1068-3
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27245227 Abstract: BACKGROUND In the European Union (EU) research project "HOBBIT" prototypes of assistive robots were developed in order to support a more secure and independent life style and trials were run at the homes of elderly users. OBJECTIVE The project "personAAL" aimed at investigating whether distinct behavioral forms of a robot ("personality"), despite an identical basic function (e.g. bringing a message) are perceived as different personalities by the test persons. MATERIAL AND METHODS For this study a robot was equipped with two types of behavior, one more introverted (purely function-oriented, impersonal and factual) and the other more extroverted (lively and enriched). The two types of behavior were demonstrated to 13 test persons (mostly older persons and experts from the care domain). RESULTS Nearly all of the test persons (12 out of 13) perceived a difference with respect to the behavior of the robot. Of the test persons 1 preferred the introverted robot, 9 the extroverted behavior of the robot and 3 had no preferences or stated that the preference depended on the context. The evaluation of answers to the Godspeed questionnaire resulted in significantly different perceptions of "anthropomorphism" and "animated" as well as in the total evaluation. It is also remarkable that no significant differences could be found for "likeability" and "perceived security". There was also no significant correlation between the preferred behavior of the robot and the self-assessment of the test person as being more introverted or extroverted. CONCLUSION From these results it can be concluded that acceptance of a robot does not solely depend on the mere function, which of course is a precondition but that it is advisable to offer a choice between different types of behavior in order to optimize acceptance.
Keywords: 80 and over, activities of daily living, Aged, Assistenz, Ergonomics, Europe, Female, Humans, Male, man-machine systems, Mensch-Roboter-Interaktion, Methods, Patient Acceptance of Health-Care, Patient Preference, Personality, PSYCHOLOGY, Robotics, Self-Help Devices, Social Support, User-Computer Interface 2014
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(2014): Improving manual skills in persons with disabilities (PWD) through a multimodal assistance system. In: Disability and rehabilitation. Assistive technology 9 (4), S. 335-343. DOI: 10.3109/17483107.2013.799238
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3109/17483107.2013.799238 Abstract: UNLABELLED In this research work, we present a Multimodal Guidance System (MGS) whose aim is to provide dynamic assistance to persons with disabilities (PWD) while performing manual activities such as drawing, coloring in and foam-cutting tasks. The MGS provides robotic assistance in the execution of 2D tasks through haptic and sound interactions. Haptic technology provides the virtual path of 2D shapes through the point-based approach, while sound technology provides audio feedback inputs related to the hand's velocity while sketching and filling or cutting operations. By combining this Multimodal System with the haptic assistance, we have created a new approach with possible applications to such diverse fields as physical rehabilitation, scientific investigation of sensorimotor learning and assessment of hand movements in PWD. The MGS has been tested by people with specific disorders affecting coordination, such as Down syndrome and developmental disabilities, under the supervision of their teachers and care assistants inside their learning environment. A Graphic User Interface has been designed for teachers and care assistants in order to provide training during the test sessions. Our results provide conclusive evidence that the effect of using the MGS increases the accuracy in the tasks operations. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION The Multimodal Guidance System (MGS) is an interface that offers haptic and sound feedback while performing manual tasks. Several studies demonstrated that the haptic guidance systems can help people in recovering cognitive function at different levels of complexity and impairment. The applications supported by our device could also have an important role in supporting physical therapist and cognitive psychologist in helping patients to recover motor and visuo-spatial abilities.
Keywords: Adolescent, Adult, Assistenz, Developmental Disabilities/physiopathology/psychology/rehabilitation, Entwicklungspsychologie, Equipment Design, Feedback, Sensory/physiology, Female, Humans, Male, Motor Skills Disorders/physiopathology/psychology/rehabilitation, Psychomotor Performance/physiology, Robotics, Self-Help Devices, User-Computer Interface, Young Adult -
(2014): The technology acceptance puzzle. Results of a representative survey in Lower Saxony. In: Zeitschrift fur Gerontologie und Geriatrie 47 (8), S. 641-647. DOI: 10.1007/s00391-014-0830-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00391-014-0830-7 Abstract: It is widely taken for granted that the interest in technology decreases with increasing age. Many studies and especially large scale surveys seem to confirm declining technology acceptance; however, it is argued that composition effects (e.g. increasing proportions of women among the older age groups), cohort effects (e.g. experience with different technologies during the lifetime) and various living and health conditions (e.g. living alone, having children in the neighborhood and experience of falls) have to be taken into account and that these factors will have different impacts on the acceptance of different scenarios of assistive technologies. The analyses are based on data from a self-administered questionnaire (n = 2032, a representative random sample of individuals aged 50 years and above in Lower Saxony, Germany). The survey briefly introduced four scenarios of ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies. Multinominal logistic regression was used to explore the correlations of acceptance and the independent variables mentioned. The results show that the simple assumption of an age effect, i.e. technology acceptance generally declines with increasing age, is misleading. An answer to the question whether older people will make use of assistive technologies in the future should consider specific scenarios and also various socioeconomic variables.
Keywords: 80 and over, Age Distribution, Aged, Assistenz, Attitude to Health, Biomedical Technology, Epidemiology, Female, Germany, Gerontologie, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Numerical Data, Patient Acceptance of Health Care/psychology/statistics & numerical data, PSYCHOLOGY, Self-Help Devices, Socioeconomic Factors, Statistics, Surveys and Questionnaires
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