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Evaluating smart speakers as assistants for informal caregivers of people with dementia

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Abstract

Dementia is a degenerative illness that progresses, affecting mentally, emotionally, and psychologically the person with dementia as well as their informal caregivers, who in most cases are family members. One of the most frequently reported symptoms of dementia is repetitive questions and behaviors; these situations do not directly affect the person with dementia, but the informal caregivers start to experience the caregiver burden. Since there are no known cures for dementia, several technological interventions have been proposed to assist the person with dementia, entertain them, and in general increase their quality of life. While they might eventually help informal caregivers, they often put an additional burden on them, particularly since informal caregivers are often older adults, and might experience difficulties using novel technologies. Thus the importance of proposing technologies to help informal caregivers reduce emotional burdens is evident. We conducted a mixed-method study where three older adults interacted using the Amazon Echo device with the Alexa voice agent for 20 days. We used a single-subject research analysis for the quantitative information, and performed a qualitative analysis to the semi-structured interviews conducted with the participants. The findings suggest that the older adults experienced some difficulties using the device. However, they were able to use it during the study period and expressed their willingness to use it for a longer period of time to become more familiar with the interaction. The ubiquity and ease of use of smart speakers makes them an appropriate technological alternative to deploy interventions aimed at addressing caregiver burden.

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Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author notes

  1. Jesús Favela, Leticia Cervantes, Alan Ramírez-Noriega and Reyes Juárez-Ramírez have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de la Ingeniería y Tecnología, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Valle de las Palmas, 22260, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

    Samantha Jiménez, Leticia Cervantes , Alan Ramírez-Noriega & Reyes Juárez-Ramírez

  2. Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, CICESE, Carretera Ensenada - Tijuana, 22860, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

    Jesús Favela

  3. Facultad de Ingeniería Mochis, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Las Fuentes, 81223, Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico

    Samantha Jiménez, Jesús Favela, Leticia Cervantes  & Alan Ramírez-Noriega

Authors
  1. Samantha Jiménez
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  2. Jesús Favela
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  4. Alan Ramírez-Noriega
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Contributions

Samantha Jiménez and Jesús Favela wrote the main manuscript text and Ángeles Quezada run experiments and collect the data, Alan Ramírez prepared all the figures, English and writing. Reyes Juárez research the related work. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samantha Jiménez.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Verbal informed consent was obtained prior to the interview.

Ethical considerations

To preserve the privacy of participants, the researchers never interacted directly with them or accessed their Amazon accounts. All data were collected thought the daily tracking format, we explained to the family members how to add the information in the shared online data sheet and we monitored the registrations every day. It is important to note that the family members acted as a proxy by deciding which information they considered appropriate to be added in the daily tracking format. We are aware that we were losing data with this strategy, however, the integrity and privacy of the participants was a priority in the experiment.

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Jiménez, S., Favela, J., Cervantes , L. et al. Evaluating smart speakers as assistants for informal caregivers of people with dementia. Univ Access Inf Soc 24, 643–653 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-024-01091-5

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