Functional requirements and design issues for a socially assistive robot for elderly people with mild cognitive impairments

It is well known that there is a worldwide increase in both the number of elderly people and the number of elderly people with mild cognitive impairments [1], [2] and thus in need of assistance in the execution of activities of daily living. Socially Assistive Robotics is a novel research field, aiming at the design of robots relying on social means to interact with people and with a well-defined assistive purpose. The contribution of the article is three-fold: (i) a detailed analysis of the requirements of a socially assistive robot helping elderly people in the execution of everyday activities; (ii) the outline of the design principles for socially assistive robots; (iii) a first proposal for a wearable robot able to engage humans at the cognitive level.