This is a 3-week mixed-method study to assess the installation procedure, assess user first impressions, develop training, assess user materials, and identify any barriers and concerns during implementation. New features and design will be validated.~Research questions include:~How should the SAR system be introduced to the users and their environment?~What are facilitators and barriers to implementation?~Will users accept the SAR system in their environment?~What are facilitators and barriers to SAR system acceptance?~What are the desired parameters that the SAR system should have?~What social behaviors do users expect?~What tasks would be acceptable that the SAR system tablet do?~How should the SAR system's perception, competence, and awareness be presented to users?~What is most valuable to users and why?~If the answer depends, then what does it depend on (user, task, environment)?~Sample: Thirty individuals will participate: 10 residents, 10 family, and 10 staff. Enrollment will stop when reaching saturation.~Procedure: The research will follow established procedures for recruitment, screening, and assessment. Participants will provide informed consent, which will be followed by a baseline assessment. Participants will be screened to ascertain inclusion and exclusion criteria. Residents and Senior Housing Community will receive the new SAR system, which includes a virtual robot and physical social robot. At the beginning of the study, enrolled residents will receive a tablet with a personalized profile, wellness programs, and virtual robot using the standard SimpleC enrollment process. Installation will be followed by training. Residents and family will be invited to personalize residents' profile and programming. One social robot will be implement for the whole community. Participants will engage with the SAR system as they are willing. All staff, residents, and family will be invited to use the SAR system, independent of study participation status. At the end of the study, assessments will be administered, which is followed by a brief interview.
This implementation study will be conducted to test a Socially-Assistive Robot (SAR) system for residents in an Assisted Living environment. The goal of the SAR system is to enhance social engagement and connectedness. The system engages residents via robot-facilitated activities such as trivia and reminder and is integrated with the SimpleC Wellness Platform.