Abstract
Demographic change is leading to a higher proportion of older adults. The health and care sector must adapt because diseases and functional limitations increase with age. Strategies are required to promote and improve the functional capacity of older adults. A key factor in protecting health is regular physical activity. However, older adults do not move enough. It is therefore important to develop strategies to encourage older adults to be physically active. Regular motivation and guidance are helpful, but often not feasible due to staff shortages and high costs of personalized trainers. One solution is to use technology. Several studies have shown the positive effects of robots as instructors and motivators for physical activity. However, it has not been examined whether it is suitable in the private household. Therefore, the explorative user study investigated whether a socially assistive robot could be a practical solution to motivate older adults living independently to exercise regularly. Seven older adults participated. They trained one week with the robot as an instructor. The participants enjoyed the robot, but some technical difficulties such as slowness, communication, face recognition, stability, and acoustic problems occured. The participants experienced the robot as motivating, but they expected habituation effects. Even if the robot used was not suitable for autonomous training at home, this research can help find new ways to motivate older adults to engage in regular physical activity and improve technical solutions with the involvement of older adults.