The University of California, San Diego published in June 2024 about the development of a robot that helps improve memory, attention and executive function. The name of the robot is the acronym for Cognitively Assistive Robot for Motivation and Neurorehabilitation.
The robot was built as a tabletop robot in collaboration with clinicians, people with mild cognitive impairment, and their caregivers. To the best knowledge of the creators of this robot, this is the only one that teaches compensatory cognitive strategies, to help improve memory and executive function.
Just to clarify, a table (known as a tabletop) robot is a device or a machine that can be used for various tasks line cutting, dispensing, soldering, or other specialized uses, like in the case of CARMEN, which has been presented itself with two different sized monitors, or rather tablet, resembling a cute little interactive robot.
The top part is showing a smiling face with eyes that blink, and probably change the mood while the user communicates with it using the touch screen positioned at the lower part of the “robot’s” body. Here is a
As we were talking about MCI, maybe it is helpful to mention that MCI stands for mild cognitive impairment, which translates into a person having slight problems with remembering things, thinking, or making decisions. This could be noticeable to self or others but is not at the level that would affect an individual’s daily live. It may manifest in slowness in responding or participating in conversations, and occasional struggle to find the right words. These symptoms may worsen with age but still not stopping a person from doing the day-to-day activities. In some instances, MCI could be the stage between normal aging and dementia. It is important that these are monitored as they can evolve into more serious memory-related affections as it is known that about 20% of individuals may have these conditions, among which 15% may evolve into dementia. Here, the research and development of robots like CARMEN come to be very useful and open the opportunities to study and remediate these affections.
Short demo of CARMEN by one of the PhD candidates working on the project.
The development team had a goal of providing practical solutions to conditions affecting cognition. In this line, the robot interacts with a person through a series of simple cognitive training exercises to create routine places to leave important objects or learn strategies to remember important things.
Among a few very important features of the robot:
- The people can use it independently, without the need of supervision from a clinician or caregiver.
- It’s plug and play, without requiring significant maintenance
- It can function with limited access to the internet, where this is not available
- It can function for a long period
- It communicates clearly with the users
- It can express compassion and empathy
- It can adjust the training pace by providing breaks after challenging tasks
The Carment was tested in the homes of several people and was also tested by the clinicians working with people with MCI. The majority of the participants but one, reported that it was easy to use, easy to understand and that they wanted more interaction with the robot.
In conclusion, the robot gave participants the confidence to use cognitive strategies in everyday life and the entire experience led to more ideas on how a tool like this can be used in other applications.
The researchers will continue to develop and deploy the robot to more homes.
If you are interested in more details, you can read the full article on the Science Daily website.