For Selma Šabanović, professor of Informatics and associate dean for faculty affairs at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, and her research team, it’s about hope, about making a difference, and about finding answers to questions that once seemed as elusive as, well, talking robots that can help people living with dementia.
The team’s innovative research is getting world-wide recognition -- the latest is a February story in Wired, a monthly magazine focused on emerging technologies that affect culture, the economy and politics -- as they strive to understand how robots can assist people as they age and bring more meaning to life for those once thought incapable of ever regaining it.
“We’re interested in making a difference for people through our research now, regardless of how well the technology works or how fast it might become a product and we can hand it off to them to take it home,” Šabanović says.
Wired writer Kat McGowan detailed her parents’ battle with dementia, and the benefits of Šabanović’s research, in her article, “My Parents’ Dementia Felt Like the End of Joy. Then Came the Robots.”
McGowan had been told there was no effective treatment for dementia and didn’t buy it. She saw her parents still had lots of moments of clarity and productivity, and even if it was diminished, it wasn’t gone. She wanted their final years to be joyful and meaningful.
Šabanović’s work, and others like it, offer hope.
“There seems to be excitement to see what the potential of these technologies is,” Šabanović says. “We don’t think of them as magical solutions that by themselves change people’s lives, but we can make the technologies better and more suited to what older adults feel is helpful. It’s a way for the technology to support what they want to do, and the relationships they care about.”
McGowan came to Bloomington and viewed interactions between QT, a 2-foot-tall talking robot, and those people with dementia. The older adults had conversations with QT as it guided them to reflect on activities, people, and places that matter to them, although with flaws researchers work to correct.
Šabanović collaborates on the project with Luddy AI Center Director and Computer Science Professor David Crandall and doctoral student Long-Jing Hsu, along with other students and researchers, to develop a robot that can help people reflect on, maintain and improve their ikigai -- a Japanese term that refers to a sense of meaning in life, social purpose and everyday joy.
“This is very much a group effort,” Šabanović says.
The Wired story’s focus is not the robots, but the experience of living with dementia and caring for somebody who has it.
“We want to make that more front and center in the design of technology,” Šabanović says.
Her work, a collaboration with Toyota Research Institute, is not about building cute, talking robots interacting with people living with dementia as much as it is about the people themselves and the researchers and passion behind the technology.
“It’s easy to get lost in the technology because there are so many problems,” Šabanović says. “There’s always something to do.
“We prefer focusing on the people and the richness of their experience and the importance of their values and the joy that they find in the research. That’s been really rewarding.”
Reward comes by working with Jill’s House, a Bloomington assisted living facility, other members of the Bloomington community, and with Dementia Action Alliance, an organization that helps people with dementia live life to the fullest.
“It’s an amazing learning opportunity for us in how to design our research to include more diverse people,” Šabanović says.
“It’s not just about the robots, it’s about making a difference, connecting with people, creating relationships with the community and having an opportunity for mutual learning.”
The story and the resultant publicity have boosted external interest in Šabanović’s research, with members of the public, other researchers and companies reaching out to discuss collaboration, and in bringing the technology to other facilities.
“It helps expand our ability to connect with more people,” she says. “Hopefully, it encourages them into giving feedback on the types of technologies that are being created.”
After three years, research remains ongoing and not yet ready for full public implementation. The goal this spring is to deploy robots in older adults’ homes and at Jill’s House for longer term use, “and see what happens.”
Current interaction ranges from 20 minutes to an hour.
“It needs to be something people can use for a week, a month or even a year,” Sabanović says, “so that it gives them useful support over longer periods of time.”
She said researchers want to ensure the technology consistently works and see how people respond to it and how it affects their everyday experiences.
“We want to know what are the things they like about using it day to day,” Sabanović says, “and what they might want to work differently.”
Research continues, and if publicity generated by the Wired story helps, all the better.
“The thing that will live on, the most valuable part, is the connections that we made with others, with people living with dementia, those in the broader dementia community, with other researchers, with people like Kat and everyone who will read the piece,” Sabanović says. “That’s the most important part that will live on no matter what happens to the robots.”