Pro-active positioning of a social robot intervening upon behavioral disturbances of persons with dementia in a smart nursing home

Behavioral disturbances of persons with dementia residing in a nursing home impose a significant burden on other residents and on the care staff. A social robot can provide an adequate technological support tool for the caregivers by approaching a resident that exhibits a behavioral disturbance. In this paper, we focus on how to position the robot in the nursing home, taking into account the profile and location of the residents. We minimize the time between the detection of a behavioral disturbance and the robot having arrived near the resident and starting an interaction scenario. Our algorithm is evaluated using realistic data that was collected during 3 months in two Belgian nursing homes. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Comprehensive Study of Industry 4.0 in Robotics for Policy Development

Robotics has advanced greatly in the past years. Modern robots can do complex tasks and are the central components of Industry 4.0. These improvements make robots applicable in a variety of fields like security, exploration, entertainment, agriculture, healthcare and industry. While advancements in robotics come with many advantages, it still faces roadblocks that hinder its development or implementation. To aid in the public acceptance and adoption of robotics in the industry, policy development is critical to minimize the social and economic effects. Several policy recommendations were made such as improved government support, wage insurance, upskilling programs, information dissemination, and robot tax, which would accelerate robotics development, bolster job security, publicize key information, and stabilize taxation

Creating Age-friendly Communities

The "Creating Age-friendly Communities: Housing and Technology" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

Context-sensitive personalities and behaviors for robots

This paper proposes Context-Sensitive Behaviors for Robots (CSBR), a method for generating diverse behaviors for robots in indoor environments based on five personality traits. This method is based on a novel model developed in this work that reacts to a synthetic genome that defines the personality of the robot. The model functions return different answers and reactions, depending on a given spoken request. The responses of the robot included spoken answers, facial animations, gestures, and actions. The novelty of this method lies in its capacity to adapt the behavior of the robot according to the context of the request. Moreover, the model is scalable since its functions not only return spoken answers but also physical responses, such as opening a gripper, saying hello with gestures, or animating a face that represents an emotion according to the context. Changes in the parameters of the synthetic genome produce different behaviors. By defining different synthetic genomes, robots can adapt to different people's moods. In this work, we introduce two scenarios for human–robot interaction in two domestic environments (house and office) through spoken requests from a human user. We implemented our method in Care-O-Bot 4 and defined three synthetic genomes to produce three behaviors: friendly, detached, and hostile. In the considered scenarios, we asked the robot the same set of requests for every synthetic genome. Not only did Care-O-Bot 4 answer according to its personality, but it also proved that our method produces different behaviors. For these scenarios, we assume that the given request includes its connotation. Since our method has characteristics influenced by context, we show that the robot's behavior changed according to the human mood and the environment

Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives"

The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

Physical activity and exercise in dementia : an umbrella review of intervention and observational studies

Background: Dementia is a common condition in older people. Among the potential risk factors, increasing attention has been focused on sedentary behaviour. However, synthesizing literature exploring whether physical activity/exercise can affect health outcomes in people with dementia or with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is still limited. Therefore, the aim of this umbrella review, promoted by the European Geriatric Medicine Society (EuGMS), is to understand the importance of physical activity/exercise for improving cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in people with dementia/MCI. Methods: Umbrella review of systematic reviews (SR) (with or without meta-analyses) of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational (prospective and case-control in people with MCI) studies based on a systematic literature search in several databases. The certainty of evidence of statistically significant outcomes attributable to physical activity/exercise interventions was evaluated using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Results: Among 1,160 articles initially evaluated, 27 systematic reviews (4 without meta-analysis) for a total of 28,205 participants with dementia/MCI were included. No observational study on physical activity/exercise in MCI for preventing dementia was included. In SRs with MAs, physical activity/exercise was effective in improving global cognition in Alzheimer’s disease and in all types of dementia (very low/low certainty of evidence). Moreover, physical activity/ exercise significantly improved global cognition, attention, executive function, and memory in MCI, with a certainty of evidence varying from low to moderate. Finally, physical activity/exercise improved non-cognitive outcomes in people with dementia including falls and neuropsychiatric symptoms. SRs, without meta-analysis, corroborated these results. Conclusions: Supported by very low to moderate certainty of evidence, physical activity/exercise has a positive effect on several cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in people with dementia and MCI, but RCTs, with low risk of bias/confounding, are still needed to confirm these findings

Deprescribing tool for STOPPFall (screening tool of older persons prescriptions in older adults with high fall risk) items

Background: Health care professionals are often reluctant to deprescribe fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs). Lack of knowledge and skills form a significant barrier. To support clinicians in the management of FRIDs and to facilitate the deprescribing process, a deprescribing tool was developed by a European expert group for STOPPFall (Screening Tool of Older Persons Prescriptions in older adults with high fall risk) items. Methods: STOPPFall was created using an expert Delphi consensus process in 2019 and in 2020, 24 panellists from EuGMS SIG on Pharmacology and Task and Finish on FRIDs completed deprescribing tool questionnaire. To develop the questionnaire, a Medline literature search was performed. The panellists were asked to indicate for every medication class a possible need for stepwise withdrawal and strategy for withdrawal. They were asked in which situations withdrawal should be performed. Furthermore, panellists were requested to indicate those symptoms patients should be monitored for after deprescribing and a possible need for follow-ups. Results: Practical deprescribing guidance was developed for STOPPFall medication classes. For each medication class, a decision tree algorithm was developed including steps from medication review to symptom monitoring after medication withdrawal. Conclusion: STOPPFall was combined with a practical deprescribing tool designed to optimize medication review. This practical guide can help overcome current reluctance towards deprescribing in clinical practice by providing an up-to-date and straightforward source of expert knowledge

Association between number of medications and mortality in geriatric inpatients : a Danish nationwide register-based cohort study

Purpose: To explore the association between the number of medications and mortality in geriatric inpatients taking activities of daily living and comorbidities into account. Methods: A nationwide population-based cohort study was performed including all patients aged C65 years admitted to geriatric departments in Denmark during 2005-2014. The outcome of interest was mortality. Activities of daily living using Barthel-Index (BI) were measured at admission. National health registers were used to link data on an individual level extracting data on medications, and hospital diseases. Patients were followed to the end of study (31.12.2015), death, or emigration, which ever occurred first. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to estimate crude survival proportions. Univariable and multivariable analyses were performed using Cox regression. The multivariable analysis adjusted for age, marital status, period of hospital admission, BMI, and BI (model 1), and further adding either number of diseases (model 2) or Charlson comorbidity index (model 3). Results: We included 74603 patients (62.8% women), with a median age of 83 (interquartile range [IQR] 77-88) years. Patients used a median of 6 (IQR 4-9) medications. Increasing number of medications was associated with increased overall, 30-days, and 1-year mortality in all 3 multivariable models for both men and women. For each extra medication the mortality increased by 3% in women and 4% in men in the fully adjusted model. Conclusion: Increasing number of medications was associated with mortality in this nationwide cohort of geriatric inpatients. Our findings highlight the importance of polypharmacy in older patients with comorbidities