Opportunities to use robots to alleviate behavioral disturbances of nursing home residents

Purpose Behavioral disturbances (BD) (e.g. wandering, screaming) occur among people with dementia (PWD)1. This observational study explored how social robots could intervene with BDs, such as wandering, exhibited by PWD. If such behavior could be automatically detected using sensors, then a robot could be sent to a wandering resident to (temporarily) stop him/her from wandering. Method In two nursing homes we observed (ca. 38 hours) staff in two departments (one open and one closed) to understand how they manage wandering behavior. We mainly focused on the interactions between the staff and the residents. These observations resulted in field notes, which we analyzed using a grounded theory approach2. Subsequently, we formulated guidelines describing how robots could intervene in the event of harmful wandering. Results & Discussion Staff did not consider wandering as a behavior that should be stopped altogether. In fact, wandering contributes "to stimulation and exercise" of the residents3p199. Nonetheless, once the behavior was harmful to the wanderers or others, strategies were used by staff to alleviate harmful wandering (Table 1). When wanderers would get tired, a staff member would invite them to sit down with a sandwich or a drink. Residents lingering around the exit (to escape) were often distracted by the staff with suggestions, for example to join the others in the living room. Based on the observations, opportunities for robot interventions were identified. For instance, robots could apply the same strategies such as distracting residents with appropriate interactions. This study contributes to existing research by suggesting non-pharmaceutical strategies to alleviate harmful wandering behavior. Future research will include co-creating robot intervention strategies together with the nursing home staff and investigating how nursing home residents that exhibit BDs respond to robots.