The Demonstructive Experiment of the Sota

◯Hypothesis

The Sota can heal the elderly through recreational functions. It also has the effect of activating the elderly's activities and energizing them.

◯Experimental method

　　
1. Under appropriate settings,Sota and the elderly person conducted a conversation.
　　
2. Following 1, we had the elderly person use Sota's functions.
　　
3. Following 1and 2, we confirmed whether the Sota will lead to healing by interviewing the elderly person.

◯Experiment

Conversational Funtion

Content１

Content２

Content３

１、After setting up the Sota, we had the elderly person use the conversational function.
２、And we had use all the Sota's functions in order.
３、After doing so we interviewed the elderly person about each function.

◯Conclusion

1. Through each recreational functions, the Sota proved to have the effect of encouraging the elderly person's activities and energizing her.
   
   
2. When the elderly person operate the Sota, the caregivers' burden would be reduced.
   →The Sota's content needs operating while being used, so the caregiver's burden would be reduced when the elderly people operate it like our experiment.

Some problems were discovered.

1. The Voice
→Sota's speaking speed was too fast and its voice was too high, so it was difficult for the elderly person to hear it.

2. The caregiver's burden wouldn't be always reduced
→As long as the nursing care person operates the remote control when using the contents, it does not necessarily reduce the burden on the caregivers except for when it operated by the elderly people who requires nursing care.

3. The Quality of the Content
→The gymnastics performed by the Sota was a reasonable exercise that make much of the functionality such as "mouth gymnastics" "thigh gymnastics". These were developed based on a medical point of view, but it is necessary to expand not only the functionality but also the contents aimed at being easily enjoyable for the elderly who require nursing.

◯What We Could NOT Verified in Our Experiment

It was right before the experiment that the elderly person first touched the Sota. The elderly person may have felt some stress as unfamiliar with the robot and may not have been able to obtain healing to be obtained in familiar situations (we can hear elderly person that if she was familiar with the Sota, she was likely to enjoy the content better).

We could not verify the effect of the Sota in the situation where the elderly person were accustomed to the Sota.