Would older adults accept a robot as a dance exercise partner?

Details

Partner dance has been shown to benefit older adults’ health, and robots might support healthy aging by engaging them in dance-based exercise. But partner dancing involves physical contact, so older adults would need to accept dancing with a robot.

Using methods from the technology acceptance literature, researchers studied 16 healthy older adults’ acceptance of robots for partner dance-based exercise. Participants successfully led a human-scale wheeled robot with arms, known as a mobile manipulator, in a simple Partnered Stepping Task (PST). They led it by maintaining physical contact and applying forces to its end effectors.

Questionnaires indicated that participants were generally accepting of the robot for partner dance-based exercise and tended to see it as useful, easy to use, and enjoyable. They tended to perceive it as easier to use after performing the PST with it. A qualitative analysis of structured interview data identified facilitators and barriers to acceptance, although the abstract does not specify what they were.

Throughout the study, the robot used admittance control to dance successfully with the older adults, demonstrating the feasibility of that method. Overall, the results suggest that robots could successfully engage older adults in partner dance-based exercise.