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Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social isolation is a common phenomenon among the elderly. Retirement, widowhood, and increased prevalence of chronic diseases in this age group lead to a decline in social relationships, which in turn has adverse consequences on health and well-being. The coronavirus COVID-19 crisis worsened this s...

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Autores principales: Isabet, Baptiste, Pino, Maribel, Lewis, Manon, Benveniste, Samuel, Rigaud, Anne-Sophie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8037050/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33808457
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073597
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author Isabet, Baptiste
Pino, Maribel
Lewis, Manon
Benveniste, Samuel
Rigaud, Anne-Sophie
author_facet Isabet, Baptiste
Pino, Maribel
Lewis, Manon
Benveniste, Samuel
Rigaud, Anne-Sophie
author_sort Isabet, Baptiste
collection PubMed
description Social isolation is a common phenomenon among the elderly. Retirement, widowhood, and increased prevalence of chronic diseases in this age group lead to a decline in social relationships, which in turn has adverse consequences on health and well-being. The coronavirus COVID-19 crisis worsened this situation, raising interest for mobile telepresence robots (MTR) that would help create, maintain, and strengthen social relationships. MTR are tools equipped with a camera, monitor, microphone, and speaker, with a body on wheels that allows for remote-controlled and sometimes autonomous movement aiming to provide easy access to assistance and networking services. We conducted a narrative review of literature describing experimental studies of MTR involving elderly people over the last 20 years, including during the COVID-19 period. The aim of this review was to examine whether MTR use was beneficial for reducing loneliness and social isolation among older adults at home and in health and care institutions and to examine the current benefits and barriers to their use and implementation. We screened 1754 references and included 24 research papers focusing on the usability, acceptability, and effectiveness of MTR. News reports on MTR use during the COVID-19 period were also examined. A qualitative, multidimensional analysis methodology inspired by a health technology assessment model was used to identify facilitating and limiting factors and investigate if and how MTR could reduce social isolation in elderly people. Reviewed studies provide encouraging evidence that MTR have potential in this regard, as experiments report positive feedback on MTR design and core functionalities. However, our analysis also points to specific technical, ergonomic, and ethical challenges that remain to be solved, highlighting the need for further multidimensional research on the design and impact of MTR interventions for older adults and building on new insights gained during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-80370502021-04-12 Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic Isabet, Baptiste Pino, Maribel Lewis, Manon Benveniste, Samuel Rigaud, Anne-Sophie Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Social isolation is a common phenomenon among the elderly. Retirement, widowhood, and increased prevalence of chronic diseases in this age group lead to a decline in social relationships, which in turn has adverse consequences on health and well-being. The coronavirus COVID-19 crisis worsened this situation, raising interest for mobile telepresence robots (MTR) that would help create, maintain, and strengthen social relationships. MTR are tools equipped with a camera, monitor, microphone, and speaker, with a body on wheels that allows for remote-controlled and sometimes autonomous movement aiming to provide easy access to assistance and networking services. We conducted a narrative review of literature describing experimental studies of MTR involving elderly people over the last 20 years, including during the COVID-19 period. The aim of this review was to examine whether MTR use was beneficial for reducing loneliness and social isolation among older adults at home and in health and care institutions and to examine the current benefits and barriers to their use and implementation. We screened 1754 references and included 24 research papers focusing on the usability, acceptability, and effectiveness of MTR. News reports on MTR use during the COVID-19 period were also examined. A qualitative, multidimensional analysis methodology inspired by a health technology assessment model was used to identify facilitating and limiting factors and investigate if and how MTR could reduce social isolation in elderly people. Reviewed studies provide encouraging evidence that MTR have potential in this regard, as experiments report positive feedback on MTR design and core functionalities. However, our analysis also points to specific technical, ergonomic, and ethical challenges that remain to be solved, highlighting the need for further multidimensional research on the design and impact of MTR interventions for older adults and building on new insights gained during the COVID-19 pandemic. MDPI 2021-03-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8037050/ /pubmed/33808457 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073597 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Isabet, Baptiste
Pino, Maribel
Lewis, Manon
Benveniste, Samuel
Rigaud, Anne-Sophie
Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Social Telepresence Robots: A Narrative Review of Experiments Involving Older Adults before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort social telepresence robots: a narrative review of experiments involving older adults before and during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8037050/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33808457
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073597
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