Combining Social Robotics and Music as a Non-Medical Treatment for People with Dementia

Today, around 260.000 people in the Netherlands are diagnosed with dementia. This paper provides a first design and evaluation of a social robot that provides the music which supports positive self-disclosures of personal memories. Based on the situated cognitive engineering methodology, we developed software for the Pepper robot which can let people with dementia (PwD) listen to their favorite music and we tested this robot in a care center with seven persons with dementia. The test focused on robot's usability and music's effect on the person listening. Three general claims were tested: The robot (1) is easy to use by the PwD, relatives and caregivers, (2) brings PwD in a more positive emotional state, and (3) stimulates PwD to recall memories and talk about their past. Our results show that the “music robot” for PwD often elicits very strong positive responses and that our observations are in line with the three claims. However, using a very human-like robot like Pepper does pose certain challenges as the PwD expect it to truly understand every word they say, which is not yet the case.