TY - JOUR
T1 - Socially Assistive Robots for Parkinson's Disease
T2 - Needs, Attitudes and Specific Applications as Identified by Healthcare Professionals
AU - Bar-On, Inbal
AU - Mayo, Gili
AU - Levy-Tzedek, Shelly
N1 - Funding Information:
The research was partially supported by the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the Agricultural, Biological and Cognitive Robotics Initiative and by the Marcus Endowment Fund, both at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Financial support was provided by the Rosetrees Trust, the Borten Family Foundation, the Robert Bergida bequest, and the Consolidated Anti-Aging Foundation. This research was also supported by the Israeli Ministry of Health, by the National Insurance Institute of Israel and received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754340.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2023/2/15
Y1 - 2023/2/15
N2 - To explore how socially assistive robots (SARs) may assist the specific needs of individuals with Parkinson's disease (IwPD), we conducted three focus groups with 12 clinicians who treat IwPD. We present a thematic analysis of their perceptions of the needs of the patients, and their own expectations, perceived advantages, disadvantages and concerns regarding the use of SARs for IwPD. Clinicians were positive towards using SARs for IwPD, if used in the patient's home, for motor, communication, emotional, and cognitive needs, especially for practice and for help with activities of daily living. They were concerned that a SAR might be used to replace clinicians' work, and stressed it should only augment the clinicians' work. They thought a SAR may relieve some of the burden experienced by informal caregivers, and identified specific applications for SARs for PD. We asked 18 stakeholders (nine IwPD, nine family members) to rate their level of agreement with the clinicians' statements. The greatest divergence between their views and those of the clinicians was on the topic of using a SAR as a companion, or as a feeding assistant, to which they objected. This work may be used as a basis for future studies designing SARs for IwPD.
AB - To explore how socially assistive robots (SARs) may assist the specific needs of individuals with Parkinson's disease (IwPD), we conducted three focus groups with 12 clinicians who treat IwPD. We present a thematic analysis of their perceptions of the needs of the patients, and their own expectations, perceived advantages, disadvantages and concerns regarding the use of SARs for IwPD. Clinicians were positive towards using SARs for IwPD, if used in the patient's home, for motor, communication, emotional, and cognitive needs, especially for practice and for help with activities of daily living. They were concerned that a SAR might be used to replace clinicians' work, and stressed it should only augment the clinicians' work. They thought a SAR may relieve some of the burden experienced by informal caregivers, and identified specific applications for SARs for PD. We asked 18 stakeholders (nine IwPD, nine family members) to rate their level of agreement with the clinicians' statements. The greatest divergence between their views and those of the clinicians was on the topic of using a SAR as a companion, or as a feeding assistant, to which they objected. This work may be used as a basis for future studies designing SARs for IwPD.
KW - care robots
KW - co-design
KW - focus groups
KW - inclusive design
KW - Participatory design
KW - qualitative methods
KW - socially assistive robots
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149002879&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3570168
DO - 10.1145/3570168
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149002879
SN - 2573-9522
VL - 12
SP - 1
EP - 25
JO - ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
JF - ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
IS - 1
M1 - 11
ER -