July 18, 2024. How can social robots be effectively integrated into everyday care to improve the care and support of senior citizens? The results of a current study at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) should shed light on this.
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A pilot study is currently being conducted at the BTU to investigate the effects of the interaction modalities of a social robot (Pepper) on the engagement and perception of test subjects in typical care situations. The focus of the study is on advice on dehydration prevention for senior citizens.
The BTU’s own robot Pepper will be used in the pilot study to test various forms of human-machine interaction. The aim of the study is to determine what effects the use of such technologies has on the knowledge construction and engagement of senior citizens in care contexts.
The approximately 1.20 meter tall human robot Pepper* can gesticulate, has facial expressions and speaks. It is used to interact with people, whose emotional states it can react to after analyzing their facial expressions and gestures.
In the “Consultation with Pepper” project, the test subjects and the robot discuss two questions in particular: The focus is on a dialogue about drinking behavior and small talk about a topic of general interest such as the weather. At the end of the investigation, there is a structured interview in each case.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Michael HĂĽbner, Vice President for Research and Transfer at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, emphasizes: “I am very pleased that the Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem and BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg are also cooperating in this area and experimentally applying the latest technologies and methods in the care sector.
Care robotics in particular is an important topic in the care of patients, which we should continue to address. In connection with artificial intelligence, there will certainly be further progress in the coming years, for example in interaction with patients, and we would like to continue to look at and expand this field of research in Lusatia, especially with scientific work from the BTU Health and Life Sciences profile line. This could be a further building block in the cooperation between the BTU and the new Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem. I would like to thank all those involved for their support with the pilot study.”
Andrea Stewig-Nitschke, Head of Nursing at the Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem, emphasizes: “The Medical University of Lusatia – Carl Thiem is based on the four pillars of healthcare, healthcare system research, teaching and digitalization. The use of robotic systems in care shows how important the integration of digital technologies into everyday clinical care will be. The pilot project in cooperation with BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg enables us to ensure that research and practice go hand in hand. The involvement of patients and interprofessionalism play a key role in establishing the project in the long term. Pepper has so far been positively received by our staff and will contribute to further progress in the clinical area of patient care and health systems research in the long term.”
Representative Professor Dr. Bettina Glunde, who heads the Department of Nursing Science and Clinical Nursing at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, explains: “The project demonstrates a double logic in an impressive way: on the one hand, research into knowledge construction in connection with robotics contributes to an expansion of knowledge about learning processes and, on the other hand, the use of Pepper makes it clear how a joint design of communication processes in nursing care using humans and machines can succeed.”
The study is being carried out as part of a master’s thesis in the Educational Media course at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Prof. Dr. Alexander Holste from the Technical University of Cologne is responsible for the study.
The part-time student and nursing scientist Jörg Matthäi, academic assistant at the Department of Nursing Science and Clinical Nursing at BTU, is conducting the study. The qualitative analysis is based on the “Automated Knowledge Construction” model by Holste (2024). This methodology allows a detailed investigation of the knowledge construction processes in the interaction with the robot.
The aim of the research question is to comprehensively capture the impact of different interaction modalities on the engagement of people in need of care and the potential impact of such modalities on their perception and overall engagement.
The research was carried out by BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg with the support of team leader Anke Krebs and deputy head of nursing Charlotte Kruehoeffer in the Geri 1 day care unit of the Medical University of Lausitz – Carl Thiem in a typical nursing environment.
“The willingness of the senior citizens to interact with the robot as part of the study was very high, as was the interest of nursing and medical colleagues in this topic,” summarizes BTU nursing scientist Jörg Matthäi. “The personalization of the robot’s interaction offer in terms of prosody – i.e. volume, tempo and speech melody – has emerged as a promising future research question. Findings from the study are already being incorporated into courses in the BTU’s Nursing Science degree program, which also deals with digital assistance systems in care.”
Interest in the study already extends far beyond the BTU. For example, nursing scientist Jörg Matthäi has been invited to report on the project at the world’s largest event in the field of technical communication, tekom in Stuttgart, in November 2024.
*The humanoid robot Pepper was developed by the French company Aldebaran Robotics SAS and the Japanese telecommunications and media group SoftBank Mobile Corp.
Representative Professor Dr. Bettina Glunde
For more information, please contact Dr. Bettina Glunde. Bettina Glunde
Department of Nursing Science and Clinical Nursing
T.: +49 (0)3573 85 734
E.: glunde(at)b-tu.de
Jörg Matthäi
Department of Nursing Science and Clinical Nursing
T.: +49 (0)3573 85 718
E.: matthaei(at)b-tu.de
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👉 www.b-tu.de
Photo: BTU, Sascha Thor
