ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Human-Robot Interaction
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frobt.2025.1545733
This article is part of the Research Topic Intelligent Assistants for All View all articles
Robotic Support for Older Adults with Cognitive and Mobility Impairments
Provisionally accepted
Samuel A. Olatunji * James Shim Adam Syed Yao-Lin Tsai April Pereira Harshal P Mahajan Raksha Anand Mudar Wendy Rogers *- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
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Robots have the potential to support older adults with cognitive impairments and mobility impairments in daily tasks that could promote their independence, enhance their abilities, ensure safety, and lower healthcare costs. Using a participatory design approach, we focused on identifying the functional capabilities of the Stretch robot to support older adults with various cognitive or mobility impairments. Twelve participants (aged 60-97) were recruited to interact with the robot and give feedback regarding support in a home environment. Stretch is a mobile robot manipulator designed to support everyday activities using a lightweight telescoping arm mounted on a mobile base. We conducted a semi-structured interview with participants as they observed and interacted with Stretch, performing tasks such as providing reminders, picking up and delivering items, and facilitating video calls. The participants were asked to share potential areas of application related to their daily activities to illustrate how Stretch could support them in their homes. Our user-centered design approach provided a unique opportunity to understand the needs of older adults with mobility impairments and cognitive impairments, to identify the type of tasks the robot could support, and to gain insights into potential facilitators and barriers for robot adoption.
Keywords: aging1, Human-robot interaction2, physical disability3, cognitive support4, acceptance5
Received: 15 Dec 2024; Accepted: 20 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Olatunji, Shim, Syed, Tsai, Pereira, Mahajan, Mudar and Rogers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Samuel A. Olatunji, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
Wendy Rogers, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
