Influence of Music on Enjoyment of Pre-Frail Elderly While Doing Physical Exercises with a Robot Coach

Pre-frail elderly people have to do physical exercises to reduce the risk of becoming frail but often lack motivation. Socially Assistive Robots could offer a solution because they have shown their effectiveness in achieving measurable progress with the elderly. This paper investigates how the addition of music and autonomy to choose it influences the enjoyment of pre-frail elderly while doing physical exercises under the coaching of a Social Robot. In an experiment with 12 pre-frail elderly coached by a robot to exercise, three different conditions were tested: (1) no music accompanying the exercise, (2) the robot chooses music, and (3) the elderly person chooses music themselves. The results show that the participants enjoyed more the music-enhanced exercises with the robot coach. Also, the music genre needs to be personalized, and the results on the autonomy of choice (robot or themselves), were mixed, however, the majority preferred the robot to choose the music. Further research is needed to make a successful personalized Social Assistive Robot, that utilizes music in its interactions.