Use of Socially Assistive Robots in Physiotherapy: Scoping Review

Socially assistive robots (SARs) are robotic technology platforms equipped with sensing (eg, through audio or visual) and acting (eg, speech and movement) capabilities to interact socially with users. SARs are increasingly adopted in physiotherapy to aid patients in their rehabilitation journey by providing feedback, motivation, and encouragement. However, while many studies have explored SAR implementation in physiotherapy, research involving clinical populations remains scarce, and the overall state of SAR deployment is unclear.

This scoping review aimed to explore the use of SARs in physiotherapy with clinical populations, how the effectiveness of these interventions has been evaluated, and identify limitations and new areas of application and future work.

Following the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses for Scoping Review) reporting guideline extension, comprehensive searches based on SARs and physiotherapy were conducted in various databases. Title and abstract screening were performed by 1 reviewer, with full-text screening conducted by 2 reviewers. Data extraction, synthesis, and analysis were completed by 1 reviewer. Data on SAR roles were categorized and synthesized using content analysis. Other descriptive texts were summarized to improve readability.

Our findings suggest that SARs are commonly used in rehabilitation clinics and hospital inpatient settings, primarily for neurological conditions. In these interventions, SARs typically serve roles, such as coaching, demonstration, monitoring, and peer support. Their effectiveness is generally evaluated through clinical outcomes, user performance, functional measures, and metrics assessing the robots' acceptability, usability, and perception.

This scoping review highlighted SARs' potential to address challenges faced by human therapists due to the demands of time-extending coaching and monitoring and the limited availability of therapists. Future research should focus on addressing the limitations identified in this scoping review, including small sample sizes, technical issues in both the robot and intervention design, sufficient involvement of key stakeholders in the design and development of SAR-based interventions, and conducting more clinical trials to investigate SAR intervention effectiveness.