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Several studies have been reported on the use of social robots for dementia care. These robots have been used for diverse tasks such as for companionship, as an exercise coach, and as daily life assistant. However, most of these studies have assessed impact on participants only at the time when the interaction takes place rather than their medium or long-term effects. In this work, we report on a nine-week study conducted in a nursing home in which a autonomous social robot, called Eva, acts as facilitator of a cognitive stimulation therapy (CST). During the study, eight persons with dementia interacted with the robot in a group session which included elements of music therapy, reminiscence, cognitive games, and relaxation. Using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home version (NPI-NH), we analyzed the impact of the therapy guided by the robot. The results show a statistically significant decrease in the total score of NPI-NH. Also, three dementia-related symptoms: Delusions, agitation/aggression, and euphoria/exaltation, show a statistically significant decrease after the intervention. In addition, a qualitative analysis on interviews conducted with caregivers shows that all participants exhibits positive short-term effects after the session and provides insights on why some changes in behavior prevailed beyond the therapy sessions. Our results provide evidence that a social robot could play a role in improving the quality of life of persons with dementia.

The articles in this special section focus on personalized pervasive health. For over more than two decades, mobile, wearable, and ambient sensor and interaction devices have grown into today’s plethora of computing platforms and tools for pervasive health. Pervasive computing is now assimilating into medicine, from disease risk prevention to diagnostics, and from treatment support to chronic-care management. Unlike more traditional medical lab technology, pervasive computing systems can be continuously available, using unobtrusive sensors, actuators, computing, and interactive interfaces to liberalize access to information on basic body functions and processes in everyday life, e.g., physical activity and vital signs. Pervasive computing platforms now natively provide practitioners and researchers with a set of functionalities that allow for the development of applications and systems that are able to make sense of complex situations, e.g., daily routines, mood, and the user’s physiology. With this potential at hand, pervasive computing systems will play a central role as enabling technology for healthcare.

Walking is a fundamental part of a physically active lifestyle, it is one of everyday activities that positively impacts health and wellbeing. In this paper we describe the challenges and experiences of conducting a sensing campaign in the wild. We make use of mk-sense; a software platform to facilitate the deployment of collaborative sensing campaigns. We elaborate on two cross-cultural studies conducted in four different countries (Mexico, Turkey, Spain, and Switzerland) with a total of 77 participants. We present a detailed description of the data collected from one of the studies aimed at measuring walkability around three different university campuses. The analysis of the data shows that walkability can be assessed using information from the sensors in the smartphones and results from surveys answered by participants. In addition, we analyze issues about data sharing and privacy awareness.

Before determining if an interaction with a social robot benefits the person with dementia (PwD), it is necessary to understand the process of acceptance of the robot by the PwD. Hence, we proposed strategies to facilitate the acceptance by PwD in real environments. We enforced these strategies in a conversational robot - called Eva, and conducted a five-week study with six PwD to analyze the impact of the strategies in the acceptance. Our preliminary results suggest that add a pleasure component such as music to the interaction improve the interaction and could enact a better bonding. Moreover, a facilitator promotes the interaction between PwD and robot, but gradually the participation of the facilitator decrease to become a direct PwD-robot interaction.

This report documents an investigation into the dynamic properties of Millikan Library under forced excitation. On July 10, 2002, we performed frequency sweeps from 1 Hz to 9.7 Hz in both the East-West (E-W) and North-South (N-S) directions using a roof level vibration generator. Natural frequencies were identified at 1.14 Hz (E-W fundamental mode), 1.67 Hz (N-S fundamental mode), 2.38 Hz (Torsional fundamental mode), 4.93 Hz (1st E-Wovertone), 6.57 Hz (1st Torsional overtone), 7.22 Hz (1st N-S overtone), and at 7.83 Hz (2nd E-Wovertone). The damping was estimated at 2.28% for the fundamental E-W mode and 2.39% for the N-S fundamental mode. On August 28, 2002, a modal analysis of each natural frequency was performed using the dense instrumentation network located in the building. For both the E-W and N-S fundamental modes, we observe a nearly linear increase in displacement with height, except at the ground floor which appears to act as a hinge. We observed little basement movement for the E-W mode, while in the N-S mode 30% of the roof displacement was due to basement rocking and translation. Both the E-W and N-S fundamental modes are best modeled by the first mode of a theoretical bending beam. The higher modes are more complex and not well represented by a simple structural system.