This thesis explores, through a mixed-methods approach, what happens when companion robots are deployed in care homes for older adults by looking at different perspectives from key stakeholders. Nine studies are presented with decision makers in municipalities, care staff and older adults, as participants, and the studies have primarily been carried out in the field in care homes and activity centres, where both qualitative (e.g., observations and workshops) and quantitative data (surveys) have been collected.  

The thesis shows that companion robots seem to be here to stay and that they can contribute to a higher quality of life for some older adults. It further presents some challenges with a certain discrepancy between what decision makers want and what staff might be able to facilitate. For future research and use of companion robots, it is key to evaluate each robot model and potential use case separately and develop clear routines for how they should be used, and most importantly, let all stakeholders be part of the process. The knowledge contribution is the holistic view of how different actors affect each other when emerging robot technology is introduced in a care environment.    

Den här avhandlingen utforskar vad som händer när sällskapsrobotar införs på omsorgsboenden för äldre genom att titta på perspektiv från olika intressenter. Nio studier presenteras med kommunala beslutsfattare, vårdpersonal och äldre som deltagare. Studierna har i huvudsak genomförts i fält på särskilda boenden och aktivitetscenter där både kvalitativa- (exempelvis observationer och workshops) och kvantitativa data (enkäter) har samlats in.  

Avhandlingen visar att sällskapsrobotar verkar vara här för att stanna och att de kan bidra till en högre livskvalitet för vissa äldre. Den visar även på en del utmaningar med en viss diskrepans mellan vad beslutsfattare vill införa och vad personalen har möjlighet att utföra i sitt arbete. För framtida forskning och användning av sällskapsrobotar är det viktigt att utvärdera varje robotmodell och varje användningsområde var för sig och ta fram tydliga rutiner för hur de ska användas, och viktigast av allt, låta alla intressenter vara en del av processen. Kunskapsbidraget med avhandlingen är en helhetssyn på hur olika aktörer påverkar varandra när ny robotteknik introduceras i en vårdmiljö 

Welfare technology has recently reached older adults in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). Many Swedish municipalities are introducing emerging technologies such as virtual reality, robotic assistive devices, and social robots in LTCFs as part of everyday care. However, not only older adults are affected by these deployments. Healthcare workers are left to master these technologies - and integrate them into existing care practices. Previous research has identified an increase in work-related stress associated with the introduction of technology for healthcare workers. The literature is, however, sparse on how healthcare workers in LTCFs are affected by the introduction. Therefore, we explored different factors that could affect healthcare workers technostress through an online survey and semi-structured interviews to get a deeper understanding of how healthcare workers are experiencing deployments of welfare technology. The main findings showed that some of the healthcare workers are finding it difficult to adopt and use welfare technology due to, for example, older age, language difficulties, or a negative attitude toward technology. We conclude that municipalities and LTCFs need to invest in their healthcare workers in order to achieve better on-boarding and reduce technostress.

Enjoyment is a crucial yet complex indicator of positive user experience in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). While manual enjoyment annotation is feasible, developing reliable automatic detection methods remains a challenge. This paper investigates a multimodal approach to automatic enjoyment annotation for HRI conversations, leveraging large language models (LLMs), visual, audio, and temporal cues. Our findings demonstrate that both text-only and multimodal LLMs with carefully designed prompts can achieve performance comparable to human annotators in detecting user enjoyment. Furthermore, results reveal a stronger alignment between LLM-based annotations and user self-reports of enjoyment compared to human annotators. While multimodal supervised learning techniques did not improve all of our performance metrics, they could successfully replicate human annotators and highlighted the importance of visual and audio cues in detecting subtle shifts in enjoyment. This research demonstrates the potential of LLMs for real-time enjoyment detection, paving the way for adaptive companion robots that can dynamically enhance user experiences.

People with cognitive impairments, such as older adults with dementia, can benefit from psychosocial interventions. Such interventions can be therapies or actions used to (re-)integrate a person into society and as of later years - robot companions have become one of the available tools. This doctoral thesis has investigated how robot companions for older adults living in care homes affects both the end users and the staff providing the psychosocial interventions. For older adults, a domestic pet robot can decrease worry, increase personhood by having something to care for, and even replace sedatives at times, while a humanoid robot might not be as accepted by this user group. For the staff, deployments of robotic welfare technology can lead to technostress and effective usage requires time and motivation, which, for example, decreased during the pandemic.

During the past decade, there has been an increased interest in using social companionship robots for older adults in care homes. Previous studies have shown that these robots, often in the shape of a household pet, can decrease stress and loneliness while increasing communication and quality of life. In our research, studying the effects of cat and dog robots at care homes, we got the impression that these robots are quite common and that the reason for implementing them varies. Therefore, we conducted an online survey, asking all municipalities in Sweden if they have social companionship robots, how they are using them and for what kind of care organisation. The result showed that more than half of the municipalities use pet robots for older adults, and most commonly for people with dementia to lower stress and increase the feeling of safety.

In response to demographic shifts contributing to an older population, limited health and social care budgets and staff shortages in institutionalised care for older adults, caring robots are increasingly imagined as potential caregivers for older adults. During the past 20 years, several initiatives have sought to design, develop, and deploy robots in care environments, focusing on robots assisting with, for example, physical and cognitive training, or providing social companionship. In this workshop we want to focus on the concept of care in the development and use of care robots for older adults. We are interested in: What different understandings of care are at play in care robotics for older adults, which practical implementation factors are there (such as infrastructure, WIFI, staff digital health literacy, investment potential), and how are care robots perceived by different key stakeholders (such as older adults, care staff, family, municipalities/care companies). We want to encourage critical reflection around these questions and invite creative ideas for how to design care robots for older adults.  

The aim of this half-day workshop is to provide a forum to share and learn about recent research and experiences with care robotics for older adults. The workshop will be a hybrid event.

We welcome participants to submit abstracts, of 1-2 pages, excluding references, covering any topic that could contribute to the discussion around care in the context of care robots. We welcome also ongoing work. Possible topics welcomed for this workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical approaches that help problematise care in care for older adults 
• Empirical studies of the use of care robots  
• Norm critical design approaches to care robots
• Technical solutions & designs for enhancing care of older adults
• Discussions of societal, political & ethical implications of care robots for older adults
• Engagement of key stakeholders and navigation of conflicting needs when implementing care robots
• How to go from a lab environment to studies in the wild to actual products considering e.g., social and technical failures, different stakeholders, nurse workload 

In response to demographic changes leading to an older population, social companion robots are increasingly considered as possible tools in care for older adults. During the last years, deployments in care homes for older adults have increased, and older adults in different stages of life are living and interacting with social robots daily. Previous research also shows that social robots can decrease loneliness and stress levels, and increase mood and communication among older adults, especially people with dementia. 

In this paper, we argue that this development calls for a greater attention to what happens to the concept and practices of care when care robots are introduced. What does it mean for the care between caregivers and caretakers when a care robot is deployed and what different kinds of care can a social robot provide? We start with posing these questions and exemplify with observations from past studies in care homes. Finally, we conclude with reflections for future studies.  

With more robots entering social environments, such as care homes for older adults, it is increasingly important to understand the target user groups' perception of different robot platforms that are introduced into their immediate surroundings. To add to existing research on older adults' attitudes toward robots after meeting a robot, and social acceptance toward certain robots, we conducted a short-term interaction study with the Furhat robot. Furhat, a blended embodiment of a physical robot head with a virtual (back-projected) face, is being marketed as one of the most social robots with high human-likeness. However, this study's results indicates that older adults do not perceive Furhat as anthropomorphic or sentient, and they especially reported a negative attitude toward robots with emotions after meeting Furhat. Despite these scores, all participants were engaged in the interaction with the robot. However, our results differ from previous studies by indicating that older adults have relatively low social acceptance for Furhat and a relatively negative attitude toward robots after meeting Furhat.

Robot's persuasive abilities have previously shown contradictory results with some depending on robot gender and some on user gender. Therefore, we conducted a replication study with the Furhat robot. The study measured differences in how persuasive (ethos, pathos, and logos) a more feminine and a more masculine looking robot was perceived by female or male participants. We hypothesised that a platform with both feminine/masculine faces and voices enables larger differences between the robot's persuasiveness compared to a female/male NAO robot (original study). Results showed statistically significant differences regarding persuasiveness between participant gender but none for the robot gender. One difference, compared to the original study, was that men rated ethos higher than women did.

In response to demographic shifts contributing to an older population, limited health and social care budgets and staff shortages in institutionalised care for older adults, caring robots are increasingly imagined as potential caregivers for older adults. During the past 20 years, several initiatives have sought to design, develop, and deploy robots in care environments, focusing on robots assisting with, for example, physical and cognitive training, or providing social companionship. In this workshop we want focus on the concept of care in the development and use of care robots for older adults. We are interested in: What different understandings of care are at play in care robotics for older adults, how do ideas of 'good care' differ between different contexts and stakeholders, and who are the envisioned recipients of robotic care? We want to encourage critical reflection around these questions and invite creative ideas for how to design care robots for older adults.