In the last decades, various researches in the field of robotics have
created numerous opportunities for innovative support of the older population.
The goal of this work was to review and highlight how social robots can help
the daily life of older people, and be useful also as assessment tools. We will
underline the aspects of usability and acceptability of robotic supports in the
psychosocial work with older persons. The actual usability of the system influences the perception of the ease of use only when the user has no or low experience, while expert users’ perception is related to their attitude towards the robot. This finding should be more deeply analysed because it may have a strong
influence on the design of future interfaces for elderly-robot interaction. Robots
can play an important role to tackle the societal challenge of the growing older
population. The authors report some recent studies with older users, where it
was demonstrated that the acceptability of robotics during daily life activities,
and also in cognitive evaluation, could be supported by social robot
