Places and the environment where the robot will be used.

The robot should be generally used in either the patient's home or at a care facility.

Home

Patients usually live home alone at this stage.

Other than aiming to help with their onset of dementia, our robot also aims to help elderly people feel less alone. More than 60% of people older than 75 feel alone and isolated (Source). A robot that they can talk to at home, or have interaction with could improve their mood and general well being.

General environment

People of old age usually have smaller houses and fewer rooms than bigger families. This allows the user to not move the robot room-by-room, but have it in a central position from where it's audible in the entire house. The home consists of a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and living room. 

Social Contact

Under this circumstance, people will have no social contact with other people; the robot only has to focus on the original user and can not confuse other people with its owner.

Care facilities

A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of elderly or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as skilled nursing facilities, long-term care facilities, old people's homes, assisted living facilities care homes, rest homes, convalescent homes, or convalescent care.

- Source

This robot is not for patients who live indefinitely in care facilities but for people who come regularly but still live at home.

General environment

In these care facilities, there are usually multiple elderly people who battle with different diseases or just simply feel alone at home and would like to socialize with people more in their age group. There are however people, who are not safe to be left alone at home, meaning they can't do their daily activities safely, or in case of an emergency, they couldn't call for help.

Care facilities could be social places where elderly people talk to each other and socialize while being supervised by professional caregivers. There are people who have the mental capability to do their daily tasks but are bored at home (usually because of the passing of their spouse).

Our robot choice allows the patients to pick up the robot and bring it with them to these facilities because it's relatively easy. However it's not recommended.

Social Contact

Under this circumstance, patients will have communications with other people as well as the caregivers, and patient's main focus will not be placed on the robot brought, so we assume the robot to enter a supervised mode and try not disturb the conversations.