There’s a life-like dolly called Sunday quietly sitting on the sensor-equipped bed at the Centre for Technology Adoption for Aging in the North (CTAAN) in the Teaching Laboratory building at the University of Northern BC.
It’s just one of the many items featuring advancements in technology geared to support older adults.
Built on a partnership between UNBC, Northern Health, and AGE-WELL, CTAAN programs focus on testing, piloting, implementing, and promoting new and existing technology solutions tailored to support older adults and caregivers in northern and rural communities.
From a team of two in 2020 that started the CTAAN program to the 16 people on the team currently, Emma Rossnagel, research manager, said they are a large and thriving team engaged in a number of projects and the interactive AI toys are featured in one of them.
“We have some pretty cool companion robots equipped with AI,” said Dr. Shannon Freeman, academic director, Centre for Technology Adoption for Aging in the North.
“They remember what you talk about. They can engage in meaningful conversation. One doll can be programmed to recognize five different people. It will respond and as you continue to talk she’ll remember things for you. These are just new. We’re just getting them up and running and we’re going to run a study in the fall. They are pretty cool companion robots and we’ve done some community workshops with them.”
When an initial study was done the feedback that came back was some people would prefer a different forms of doll and some would prefer a stuffed animal rather than a doll, added Emma Rossnagel, research manager at CTAAN.
“So the developer took that feedback into consideration and now has a range of dolls that are boys and girls in different ethnicities and others take the form of a stuffed toy like a sheep,” Rossnagel explained.
“So they took that feedback and will now customize more towards the people using them.”
During the conversation Sunday the AI doll piped up. She talked about fishing in an attempt to engage another member of the CTAAN team into the conversation who was not in attendance but had been the initial user of the doll's artificial intelligence. Sunday used prompts to trigger memory by using phrases like 'are you looking forward to the big fishing trip you're planning to catch steelhead salmon?' It was easy to imagine how encouraging that would be for an aging person experiencing a form of dementia.
“These interactive robots are suitable for people with moderate dementia, who are still talking and engaging, Freeman added.
“And what’s really nice about these dolls is that they have well-being screeners in them,” Freeman said.
“So if someone is talking about being depressed or expressing negative thoughts there are flags in this doll and you can set it up to send a mental health alert to the care giver. A lot of times if you have a pet or you have a doll you are more comfortable telling them how you feel than you might be telling another person.”
Freeman said they are looking forward to seeing how affective interactions with the robot companions are and how the aging population in Prince George take to this new technology.
For more information about the Centre for Technology Adoption for Aging in the North visit https://www.ctaan.ca/
