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Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The bans on visiting nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, while intended to protect residents, also have the risk of increasing the loneliness and social isolation that already existed among the older generations before the pandemic. To combat loneliness and social isolation in nursing homes,...

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Autores principales: Follmann, Andreas, Schollemann, Franziska, Arnolds, Andrea, Weismann, Pauline, Laurentius, Thea, Rossaint, Rolf, Czaplik, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124278/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34062776
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094846
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author Follmann, Andreas
Schollemann, Franziska
Arnolds, Andrea
Weismann, Pauline
Laurentius, Thea
Rossaint, Rolf
Czaplik, Michael
author_facet Follmann, Andreas
Schollemann, Franziska
Arnolds, Andrea
Weismann, Pauline
Laurentius, Thea
Rossaint, Rolf
Czaplik, Michael
author_sort Follmann, Andreas
collection PubMed
description The bans on visiting nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, while intended to protect residents, also have the risk of increasing the loneliness and social isolation that already existed among the older generations before the pandemic. To combat loneliness and social isolation in nursing homes, this trial presents a study during which social networks of nursing home residents and elderly hospital patients were maintained through virtual encounters and robots, respectively. The observational trial included volunteers who were either residents of nursing homes or patients in a geriatric hospital. Each volunteer was asked to fill in a questionnaire containing three questions to measure loneliness. The questionnaire also documented whether video telephony via the robot, an alternative contact option (for example, a phone call), or no contact with relatives had taken place. The aim was to work out the general acceptance and the benefits of virtual encounters using robots for different roles (users, relatives, nursing staff, facilities). Seventy volunteers with three possible interventions (non-contact, virtual encounters by means of a robot, and any other contact) took part in this trial. The frequency of use of the robot increased steadily over the course of the study, and it was regularly used in all facilities during the weeks of visitor bans (n = 134 times). In the hospital, loneliness decreased significantly among patients for whom the robot was used to provide contact (F(1,25) = 7.783, p = 0.01). In the nursing homes, no demonstrable effect could be achieved in this way, although the subject feedback from the users was consistently positive.
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spelling pubmed-81242782021-05-17 Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic Follmann, Andreas Schollemann, Franziska Arnolds, Andrea Weismann, Pauline Laurentius, Thea Rossaint, Rolf Czaplik, Michael Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The bans on visiting nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, while intended to protect residents, also have the risk of increasing the loneliness and social isolation that already existed among the older generations before the pandemic. To combat loneliness and social isolation in nursing homes, this trial presents a study during which social networks of nursing home residents and elderly hospital patients were maintained through virtual encounters and robots, respectively. The observational trial included volunteers who were either residents of nursing homes or patients in a geriatric hospital. Each volunteer was asked to fill in a questionnaire containing three questions to measure loneliness. The questionnaire also documented whether video telephony via the robot, an alternative contact option (for example, a phone call), or no contact with relatives had taken place. The aim was to work out the general acceptance and the benefits of virtual encounters using robots for different roles (users, relatives, nursing staff, facilities). Seventy volunteers with three possible interventions (non-contact, virtual encounters by means of a robot, and any other contact) took part in this trial. The frequency of use of the robot increased steadily over the course of the study, and it was regularly used in all facilities during the weeks of visitor bans (n = 134 times). In the hospital, loneliness decreased significantly among patients for whom the robot was used to provide contact (F(1,25) = 7.783, p = 0.01). In the nursing homes, no demonstrable effect could be achieved in this way, although the subject feedback from the users was consistently positive. MDPI 2021-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8124278/ /pubmed/34062776 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094846 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 Article
Follmann, Andreas
Schollemann, Franziska
Arnolds, Andrea
Weismann, Pauline
Laurentius, Thea
Rossaint, Rolf
Czaplik, Michael
Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Reducing Loneliness in Stationary Geriatric Care with Robots and Virtual Encounters—A Contribution to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort reducing loneliness in stationary geriatric care with robots and virtual encounters—a contribution to the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124278/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34062776
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094846
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