Virtual humans in geriatric care: an integrative review

The Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions have introduced new and innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and virtual humanoids (VH) that offer promising solutions to health challenges among older adults. This project aims to provide an integrative review of VH concepts in geriatric care.

Scientific articles from reputable research databases (eg, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed) were extracted using relevant keywords and uploaded to the Covidence application for screening, full-text analysis, and extraction. A total of 36 articles were generated in the final stage of screening.

The 36 articles showcased various findings and insights on VH for geriatric care. More than half of the articles (66.67%) originated from the European region and were published in technology-related journals (55.56%). Most VH in the studies are used for social health interventions (33.3%), specifically for companionship purposes (25%). Furthermore, a great number of VH have average human likeness (55.56%) with the capacity to communicate with the end-user using pre-programmed responses (33.33%).

The use of VH in geriatric care has shifted from providing companionship (social) to delivering relevant instructions (educational) for health and well-being. Researchers from developing countries are providing increasing attention to VH studies involving multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams. The use of AI in VH development is limited, but it has the potential to transform geriatric care and the field of gerotechnology.