Humanoid Robotics for Patients with Sarcopenia: A Preliminary Study on Interaction Features

Abstract

A significant growth of the population of senior citizens is estimated to be observed in the coming years, leading to the onset of socio-sanitary issues. Therefore, it is important to design tools that facilitate active ageing and prevent the occurrence of physical frailty in older people, making seniority a valuable resource rather than an issue of concern. Technology represents an efficient tool to take on such task, as it facilitates the replicability of human-centered trials. In particular, humanoid robotics have proven to be effective applied to weak users, notably in the treatment of people with cognitive disorders, both children (e.g. autistic) and older patients (e.g. Alzheimer). Humanoid robots could represent efficient tools in the design of trials to promote active ageing, since the latter are able to guide elderly people through exercises, to monitor proper execution and to give a real-time human-like feedback, with a consequent involvement of the users. Such high-level of engagement characterizes that kind of interactions, called Human-Humanoid interactions, which should be invested of the same importance of morphological and technological aspects during the design phases. In this paper we provide an overview of some humanoid robots which have been used over the last years in the revolutionary robotics field, providing a comparison of the principal interaction features in relation to what kind of user every robot was designed for.

Such preliminary study will serve as a basis to define the most appropriate aesthetic/behavioural features required in the design of a humanoid robot for the prevention of sarcopenia.