Promoting Autonomy in Care: Combining Sensor Technology and Social Robotics for Health Monitoring

As the world’s population grows significantly older, there are not enough caregivers in many countries for all the elderly people in need of care. To promote their autonomy while also supporting their caregivers, we propose a health monitoring system comprised of a social robot, and various wearable and non-wearable sensors. Through the use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), captured in conversation with the social robot, the subjective health status of the user is determined. This is supplemented by objective information gathered from wearable and non-wearable sensors used to measure numerous biosignals. By combining the subjective data obtained from interaction with the user and the objective data from the sensor network, a health report for both users and caregivers is generated. The data are visualized for the user and caregiver in a customizable and easily accessible health monitoring dashboard, which also warns the user and their caregivers when the data deviate from the expected values or ranges. The goal is to use this information to improve the quality of care, as changes in the user’s health status can be determined more quickly by themselves and their caregivers. The proposed system establishes a good base for further testing and optimization together with the user, to ensure a useful and appropriate combination of sensors and technological devices that the user is comfortable with.