A preliminary experimental study on untact silver-care-robot program

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to examine the level of depression, attitude toward robot, mood changes, and content usage rankings of the elderly upon the provision of an untact silver-care-robot program. The program was provided to the elderly with normal cognitive function, with 17 subjects in the experimental group and 25 subjects in the control group. Each session lasted approximately 30 min and was provided once a week over five weeks between October 13, 2020 and November 18, 2020. For data analysis, we used SPSS 25.0. The analysis results indicated that there were no significant differences between the experimental and the control groups in terms of depression (t = 1.641, p =. 109) and attitude toward the robot (t = 1.176, p =. 247), but the experimental group exhibited more positive changes. There was no significant difference in mood state before and after program participation in the experimental group. However, the mood score increased after the program (t = 2.624, p =. 079), and in the case of content usage, singing was the most commonly used feature. In a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the untact silver-care-robot program is expected to be introduced and utilized as one of the efficient care approaches for the elderly in the future. © ICROS 2021.