Robots & Heros: A diabetes camp in the Netherlands with robot buddy
T1DM is a chronic disease that sets high demands on self-management in childhood to prevent health problems in short-term (hypo or hyper) and in long-term (e.g., arteriosclerosis) [1-2]. Self-management requires motivation and perseverance.
PAL (Personal Assistant for Healthy Lifestyle) is a 4-year European Horizon 2020 project. It develops and researches a social robot (i.e., the NAO, a humanoid, embodied and interactive agent), its avatar (in an app), an authoring tool for healthcare professionals (PAL Control) and an information system for parents (PAL Inform) (www.pal4u.eu). PAL aims at assisting the child (7-14 years old), health care professional and parent, to jointly perform diabetes management, whereby the child learns to be more self-reliant before adolescence. This is situated in different daily contexts for children with T1DM, such as at home, in hospitals, and at diabetes camps in the Netherlands and Italy.
During a three day diabetes camp organised this autumn in the Netherlands, children (8-12y) interact with the PAL system (robot, avatar and edutainment apps). Also, through creative methods (e.g., theatre, drawing, story telling), they are surveyed on 1) their needs for diabetes self-management support and 2) how the PAL system could further support them in their diabetes .management. Lessons learned during the camp are used to further improve the PAL system for fun, useful and long-term support for T1DM in children.
The project involves research partners TNO (coordinator), DFKI, FCSR, Imperial and Delft University of Technology, next to end-users, the hospitals Gelderse Vallei and Meander, and the Diabetes Association Netherlands and Ital, and SME’s Mixel and Produxi.
Additional Details
Timezone -
Organisation - TNO
Contact Name - Dr. Olivier Blanson Henkemans
E-mail - olivier.blansonhenkemans@tno.nl
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