Multi-agent approach to foster regular physical activity in elderly users

The increase of life expectancy in last decades brought with it an increase in the number of technologies developed to assist this growing population segment. Some of the developed technologies focus on assisting older adults age in a more active way, remaining active and independent for longer. In accordance with the concept of active ageing we present a multi-agent approach, intended to foster healthy exercise habits among the elderly. This paper presents a multi-agent exercise system that positively affects elders’ motivation to engage and maintain exercise habits. It details the theoretical foundations for our approach as well as the implementation details of each agent. A pilot study was conducted on 12 elderly users, testing three variants of the system, each involving a different combination of agents, and evaluating their impact on the participants. Results show that all three variants of the system were able to guide the participants through a diverse exercise routine, with the most complete system being the one most highly evaluated by the users.