Robotics in everyday life

Personalised therapeutic products for people living with dementia

The Team: Prof Jonathan Rossiter, Dept of Engineering, Nirav Ajmeri Dept Computer Science, Emily Henderson, Bristol Medical School, Dr Chirs Kent, school of Psychology, Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith, School of Humanities, Amy Hicks, Digital Health. Annie Lywood product designer.

This project seeks to develop a soft robotic device as a therapeutic product with intelligent sensing to support people living with dementia. We will systematically explore and develop intelligent sensing to personalise a health and wellbeing soft robotic device to adapt to a user’s changing needs.

Our project aligns with the Healthy ageing (Innovate UK) theme. It will help establish the research team as being at the forefront of human-centred and inclusive design for people living with dementia, with the potential to integrate social science information into the design and innovation of novel robot technologies which ‘sense’, enabling greater personalisation.

We intend to investigate the following question: What does a soft robotic wellbeing device need to sense and understand about its human user (a) to personalise its interactions with the user; and (b) to respond in a sensitive and intuitive manner such that the user feels comforted and cared for?