Talk with Ted: an embodied conversational agent for caregivers

ABSTRACT

Communication is key to the success of any relationship. When it comes to caregivers, having a conversation with a person living with some form of cognitive impairment, such as dementia, can be a struggle. Most people living with dementia experience some form of communication impairment that reduces their ability to express their needs. In this case study, we present the design of an embodied conversation agent (ECA), Ted, designed to educate caregivers about the importance of good communication principles when engaging with people living with dementia. This training tool was trialed and compared to an online training tool, with 23 caregivers divided into two cohorts (12 in the ECA condition, and 11 in the online training tool condition), over a period of 8 weeks using a mixed evaluation approach. Our findings suggest that (a) caregivers developed an emotional connection with the ECA and retained the learning from their interactions with Ted even after 8 weeks had elapsed, (b) caregivers implemented the learnings in their practice, and (c) the changes in care practice were well received by people living with dementia.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodied conversational agents
• designing ECAs
• emotion-oriented approach
• user evaluation
• principles of good communication

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Digital Enhanced Living and Rosemary Norman Foundation for funding this project; the Dementia Australia team, in particular, Jess Norman, for their continuous support and guidance throughout the project; the development team at Deakin University’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, in particular, Rohan Liston, Tanya Frank, Zac Brannelly; the Fika Entertainment team; Miles Tankle, the human performer; the Victorian aged care organizations and their employees for their participation in the study; the Deakin School of Nursing and Midwifery for providing us with their simulation lab.

An earlier version of this work was presented at the 35^th Global Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International (Petrovich et al., 2022).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Digital Enhanced Living The Rosemary Norman Foundation .