Inter- and intra-rater reliability of cognitive assessment conducted by assistive robot for older adults living in the community: a preliminary study

Yuko Nishiura ¹, Takenobu Inoue ², Kana Takaeda ³

⁰Occupational Therapy Sciences, Department of Integrated Health Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.

Psychogeriatrics : the Official Journal of the Japanese Psychogeriatric Society +

|

October 24, 2024

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Assistive robots show excellent reliability for assessing older adults' orientation, a key indicator for dementia. Further development could enable robots to measure dementia symptoms and severity.

Area Of Science

Gerontology
Robotics
Cognitive Science

Background

Assistive robots are increasingly explored for cognitive function evaluation in older adults.
Assessing the reliability of these robotic tools is crucial for their clinical adoption.

Purpose Of The Study

To determine the inter- and intra-rater reliability of cognitive function assessment using an assistive robot in older adults.
To evaluate the test-retest reliability of the robot-based cognitive examination.

Main Methods

Two experiments were conducted to assess reliability.
Experiment 1: Compared assistive robot and human examiner using Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE) with a 1-week interval.
Experiment 2: Assessed test-retest reliability of the robot-administered NCSE over a 6-week period.

Main Results

Experiment 1 showed excellent inter-rater reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.919) for the orientation domain.
Other cognitive domains in Experiment 1 did not yield positive reliability results.
Experiment 2 indicated adequate test-retest reliability for orientation, attention, and repetition, with other domains showing marginal to low reliability.

Conclusions

Orientation assessment by assistive robots demonstrates high reliability and potential for early dementia symptom detection.
Future advancements in robot technology may allow for precise measurement of dementia symptoms and severity.

Keywords:

assistive technology cognitive assessment older adults robot