Paper Abstract
"Many elderly residing in nursing homes have age-prevalent cognitive impairment and would benefit from regular social and cognitive engagements to maintain their well-being. However, manpower and resources to cater for both healthy elderly and their cognitively impaired co-inhabitants effectively are often inadequate in elderly care settings; therefore, other measures must be considered. Here, we subjectively and objectively evaluated the feasibility and impact of Nadine, our humanoid social robot, conducting Bingo games for a group of cognitively impaired elderly at a nursing home, compared to Staff-led sessions. The elderly engaged more and sought less attention from staff during Nadine-led Bingo games than during Staff-championed sessions. They were also calmer, happier, more at ease, and more communicative during Nadine-led games. These findings can guide future designs of humanoid robots that could be extended to become mobile robots to engage with the elderly of various functional and cognitive abilities and provide more manpower."

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