Stress Management App for Older Adults

Technology can be used to recognize and manage stress, particularly robotic interventions, which can potentially assist older adults and people with dementia. However, barriers such as ageism can hinder the effective implementation of such technological solutions, even in digital technologies intended to serve older adults (Mannheim, Wouters, et al., 2023), although the involvement of stakeholders in the design process is considered a main factor that influences the acceptance of robots (Frennert & Östlund, 2014).
This project aimed to examine the influence of the involvement of older adults in the design process of a stress management robot application intended for older adults on the perceived benefit and acceptance of the robot.

This project included two design processes:
1. Non-inclusive design process: A design process of a stress management robot application involving only the researcher as a part of an academic course.
2. Inclusive design process: A design process of a stress management robot application involving older adults as a part of a co-design workshop developed for this project.
A between-group experiment designed to examine the relationships between stress levels, perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and behavioral intention (BI) across two prototypes (independent variables) of stress management robot applications (one designed in a non-inclusive design process, the other in an inclusive design process with older adults).
Dependent variables were stress level, perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and behavioral intention (BI).

The independent variable was the robot application type (prototype A = application designed in a non-inclusive process, prototype B = application
designed in an inclusive process).
There were no significant results concerning mean RMSSD, but it was shown that the mean RMSSD of the group of prototype B stayed closer to the baseline's mean RMSSD. Moreover, TAM questionnaire analysis with the Mann-Whitney U test showed in a significant level of 0.05 that prototype A was perceived as a little more useful and likely to be used, than prototype B.
In future work, it is recommended to involve older adults with suitable professional backgrounds (such as developers and designers) and change the flow of the experiment.
Keywords: Older adults, co-design, social robot, stress, stress management robot application.

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