Lessons learned from the deployment of a long-term autonomous robot as companion in physical therapy for older adults with dementia a mixed methods study

The eldercare sector is a promising deployment area for robotics where robots can support staff and help to bridge the predicted staff-shortage. A requirement analysis showed that one field of robot-deployment could be supporting physical therapy of older adults with advanced dementia. To explore this possibility, a long-term autonomous robot was deployed as a walking group assistant at a care site for the first time. The robot accompanied two weekly walking groups for a month, offering visual and acoustic stimulation. Therapists' experience, the robot's influence on the dynamic of the group and the therapists' estimation of the robot's utility were assessed by a mixed methods design consisting of observations, interviews and rating scales. Findings suggest that a robot has the potential to enhance motivation, group coherence and also mood within the walking group. Furthermore, older adults show curiosity and openness towards the robot. However, robustness and reliability of the system must be high, otherwise technical problems quickly turn the robot from a useful assistant into a source of additional workload and exhaustion for therapists

Theoretical Background, System Architecture and Application Scenarios

Due to the rapidly growing amount of knowledge, a stronger need emerges for efficient and improved knowledge acquisition strategies. E-learning can be very helpful for different learning activities in various learning environments. However, in order to support different teaching and learning paradigms, e-learning should deal with more than simply reading online lessons. Therefore, content as well as communication and collaboration have to be supported in a highly personalised manner by e-learning systems. Though, tracking and grasping the user behaviour in real time remains the most challenging task to retrieve an appropriate and finegrained user profile as well as to provide personalised learning content. In this paper we present AdeLE, a technology-based solution of an enhanced adaptive e-learning framework, which comprises novel solution approaches for fine-grained user profiles by exploiting real time eye-tracking and content-tracking analysis as well as a dynamic background library. Based on the global objectives of an enhanced e-learning environment

The left amygdala : A shared substrate of alexithymia and empathy

Alexithymia, a deficit in emotional self-awareness, and deficits in empathy, which encompasses the awareness of other's emotions, are related constructs that are both associated with a range of psychopathological disorders. Neuroimaging studies suggest that there is overlap between the neural bases of alexithymia and empathy, but no systematic comparison has been conducted so far. The aim of this structural magnetic resonance imaging study was to disentangle the overlap and differences between the morphological profiles of the cognitive and affective dimensions of alexithymia and empathy, and to find out to what extent these differ between women and men. High-resolution T1 anatomical images were obtained from 125 healthy right-handers (18–42 years), 70 women and 55 men. By means of voxel-based morphometry, region of interest (ROI) analyses were performed on gray matter volumes of several anatomically defined a-priori regions previously linked to alexithymia and empathy. Partial correlations were conducted within the female and male group using ROI parameter estimates as dependent variables and the cognitive and affective dimensions of alexithymia and empathy, respectively, as predictors, controlling for age. Results were considered significant if they survived Holm–Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The left amygdala was identified as a key substrate of both alexithymia and empathy. This association was characterized by an opposite pattern: The cognitive alexithymia dimension was linked to smaller, the two empathy dimensions to larger left amygdala volume. While sex-specific effects were not observed for empathy, they were evident for the affective alexithymia dimension: Men—but not women—with difficulty fantasizing had smaller gray matter volume in the middle cingulate cortex. Moreover, structural covariance patterns between the left amygdala and other emotion-related brain regions differed markedly between alexithymia and empathy. These differences may underlie the complex patterns of deficits in emotional self- and other-awareness observed across a range of psychopathological conditions

Lessons learned from the deployment of a long-term autonomous robot as companion in physical therapy for older adults with dementia a mixed methods study

The eldercare sector is a promising deployment area for robotics where robots can support staff and help to bridge the predicted staff-shortage. A requirement analysis showed that one field of robot-deployment could be supporting physical therapy of older adults with advanced dementia. To explore this possibility, a long-term autonomous robot was deployed as a walking group assistant at a care site for the first time. The robot accompanied two weekly walking groups for a month, offering visual and acoustic stimulation. Therapists' experience, the robot's influence on the dynamic of the group and the therapists' estimation of the robot's utility were assessed by a mixed methods design consisting of observations, interviews and rating scales. Findings suggest that a robot has the potential to enhance motivation, group coherence and also mood within the walking group. Furthermore, older adults show curiosity and openness towards the robot. However, robustness and reliability of the system must be high, otherwise technical problems quickly turn the robot from a useful assistant into a source of additional workload and exhaustion for therapists.</p