Cultural Feasibility of Conversational Robots for Dementia Care in India: Participatory Design Study

Dementia poses a significant challenge in India. The rising incidence rates, limited resources, and restricted clinician access have contributed to a staggering 90% gap in diagnosis and care. Conversational technology provides a natural user interface with the potential to promote the independence, well-being, and safety of people living with dementia at home. However, the feasibility of implementing such technology to support people living with dementia across diverse cultural and economic settings remains underexplored.

This study aimed to assess the cultural feasibility of conversational robots for dementia care in India, a culturally underserved context in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) for aging and dementia care.

We involved 29 stakeholders, including people living with dementia, caregivers, and dementia care professionals. We evaluated (1) the engagement of people living with dementia with 3 conversational robots with varying interactive modalities (a voice agent, a virtual affective robot, and an embodied robot), (2) robot acceptance, and (3) stakeholder perspectives on the benefits and challenges of deploying conversational AI in India.

People living with dementia were willing to engage in verbal dialogue with conversational robots. Stakeholders perceived the technology as beneficial for supporting daily tasks at home, reducing loneliness, and enhancing cognitive function. We identified design adaptations to address feasibility challenges in India, including the need to (1) adapt interaction style to use a kind tone, appreciative language, and customizable facial expressions; (2) improve speech recognition for local accents interpretation and noisy settings; and (3) introduce prototypes in local clinics to promote familiarity.

This work offers novel insights into cultural acceptance, human-robot engagement, and perceived utility for dementia care, along with key design implications for integrating conversational AI into care settings in India.