The NAO models for the elderly David López Recio Mobile Life @ KTH Kista, Sweden davidlr@mobilelifecentre.org Luis Márquez Segura Fonserrana S.C.A de interés social Tocina, Spain luismarquezsegura@gmail.com Elena Márquez Segura Mobile Life @ SICS Kista, Sweden elena@mobilelifecentre.org Annika Waern Mobile Life @ Stockholm University Kista, Sweden annikaw@dsv.su.se Abstract— This paper highlights initial observations from a user study performed in an assisted living facility in Spain, in which we introduced the NAO to assist regular physiotherapy practices. The NAO is introduced in order to take on one of the usual roles of the physiotherapist: modeling movements for the inpatients. We also introduced a virtual version of the NAO in order to see whether this role of modeling is equally effective in a screen-based or in a physical manner. Preliminary results show the inpatitens adjust their movements to the NAO, although they react differently to the virtual and the physical robot. Index Terms—elderly’s behavior, physiotherapy, NAO. I. INTRODUCTION The increase in the number of elderly in Europe over 65 by 2050 is estimated to reach the percentage of 70%. This number poses a challenge to traditional health care practice, which will need to find ways to accommodate this higher demand for healthcare [1]. Eyes are turned therefore to come up with methods and new tools to improve the effectiveness of health practice. In this line, there has been research around applying methods and tools borrowed from other realms, like video games [3][4]. As an example, some have used high tech sensing devices from known game consoles, like the Wii [3]or the Kinect [4] and have taken advantages of its powerful sensing mechanisms in application scenarios where tracking movements is relevant for the rehabilitation [4] . In this paper, we present preliminary observations from a user study in which we used the NAO robot from Aldebaran [5]. The user study is performed in an assisted living facility in Seville (Spain). This is a follow up of a former study in which we used a low-tech prototype to research the role of the technology in the setting of geriatric rehabilitations [2]. In this case, we specifically assigned the technology a concrete role: assisting the physiotherapist in modeling the movements performed during the physiotherapist interventions. We are interested in researching the assistance that such technology could potentially provide in a similar setting. Although we were mainly concerned about providing a three dimensional feedback similar to that of the physiotherapist, we also wanted to explore how feedback from a screen worked for the inpatients. II. BACKGROUND The starting point of this study is a previous user study performed in the same assisted living facility [2], which was born to the light of the needs of that specific place: Their physiotherapist reported that some motivations why some of the elderly attended and required rehabilitation interventions were probably the emotional bond they shared with him, and the socializing element and personal attention the inpatients receive during one-to-one physiotherapy interventions. Despite this reason seem to be enough for many inpatients who attend to the interventions, it also bring negative side implications, like some inpatients also “using” that emotional bond and demanding more indulgent and less demanding rehabilitation sessions (e.g. less repetitions). In [2], they realized that introducing a piece of technology in the physiotherapy interventions changed this dynamic by changing the roles of the physiotherapist and the behavior of the inpatient in an interesting way: the technology became “the bad cop” whilst the physiotherapist and the inpatient joint forces to “beat the system”. Following up on that previous study, we would like to research different settings with different configurations in terms of roles, responsibilities, and capabilities of “the players” on the scene: physiotherapist, inpatients, and technology. III. METHODOLOGY We programed the NAO robot so that it could perform 9 exercises that were previously specified by the physiotherapist of the assisted living facility. These exercises are performed with regularity in their rehabilitation sessions. We used also the NAOSim provided by Aldebaran to be able to record the virtual version of the NAO doing the exact same movements. This would comprise our virtual version of the physical NAO.