Appropriate talking pattern of an information support robot for people living with dementia: a case study

Purpose – The authors are in the process of exploring an information support robot to support daily activities of people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia. The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the robot should talk to an older woman with dementia to make her perform daily activities. Design/methodology/approach – The robot asked to the participant to do some daily activities; Task A, taking medicine; Task B, measuring blood pressure; and Task C, cleaning up the room in three different ways for each task. In the talking pattern 1 (TP1), the robot simply informed what the tasks were. The talking patterns 2 and 3 (TP2 and TP3) were separated according to the process of activities in two and three steps, respectively. The participant was required to answer “Yes” if she understood what the robot talked to her, and perform the tasks. Findings – The participant was not able to prepare water in the Task A when the robot spoke the TP1 (performance rate (PR) was 71.4 per cent). However, she could per...