Music

PLEASE ADD sources about claim: music association with task, and claim: music for relaxation + entertainment

In the lecture, the professor talked about the potential effectiveness of music. Music cognition investigates human musical response and behavior and it involves many different functional domains. Therefore, music has great potential to activate and engage. Moreover, the professor mentioned that music is used as a mood-modulator in non-clinical everyday settings. Music could arouse multisensory stimulation which has beneficial effects. Because of the great potential of music for social interaction, communication, or as a joint activity, it can also be used in Pepper to make our robot more functional and powerful.

We plan to use music for four main purposes:

1. The PwD becomes aware of Pepper's presence.
   Before each activity, Pepper would play a piece of short music to indicate its location. It would be easier for PwD to know where the Pepper is.

2. The PwD uses music to create associations to certain tasks.
We added a short piece of music before each activity. We are using the same music for all activities now, but we could also set different music for different activities. In this way, PwDs could build associations with certain activities. Whenever a piece of specific music is playing, the PwD would know which activity he/she is going to do. 

3. The PwD is relaxed.
Music can help PwDs to relax. It is easy to startle PwD if Pepper suddenly starts to talk. Therefore, Pepper plays gentle music to relax the PwD, and also the PwD would know Pepper will talk soon, so they would not get startled. Researchers found that state anxiety, heart rate, and respiratory rate all decreased significantly for those subjects who received a single treatment of music [1]. These findings indicate that music therapy indeed was effective in reducing the pressure and helping people to relax. 

4. The PwD is entertained.
PwDs would get happy if they listen to the music that they like. We are using the same music for all the activities now. But we can customize it according to different activities and the preferences of different patients. Then PwDs would feel entertained when their favorite music is playing.

Cognition

In the lecture, the professor talked about neural changes and cognitive changes in the brain when people get older. The brain of older people suffers from both structural and functional changes, like cortical thinning/atrophy, decrease in cerebral blood flow, degradation of cells, etc. Things get worse for people with dementia. Therefore, we want to prevent the damage by some interventions. The goals are to prevent “excess disability”, promote functional improvement, and maintain QoL for both the patient and their family.

In the paper, Cognitive stimulation for dementia: A systematic review of the evidence of effectiveness from randomised controlled trials, researchers found that cognitive stimulation consistently improves cognitive function in people with dementia [2]. It also indicates that cognitive stimulation also benefits self-reported well-being and quality of life. 

In our design, we took activity breakdown as cognitive stimulation. Activities that the PwD enjoys would be added to Pepper. Then Pepper can guide the PwD through the whole process step by step. In this way, PwDs would feel that they still can do something and also stimulate their cognitive ability.

[1] Chlan, L. (1998). Effectiveness of a music therapy intervention on relaxation and anxiety for patients receiving ventilatory assistance. Heart & Lung, 27(3), 169-176. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0147956398900048
[2] Aguirre, E., Woods, R. T., Spector, A., & Orrell, M. (2013). Cognitive stimulation for dementia: a systematic review of the evidence of effectiveness from randomised controlled trials. Ageing research reviews, 12(1), 253-262. https://www-sciencedirect-com.tudelft.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S1568163712000955?casa_token=w_q3pZzmseAAAAAA:vclGWiDLjDL47H_yEo5DQSpTUqptn2gRsp3Mmg1YbtfJdF6VjyoByCZm8CapIdFbnf-VcRY7xSg