Charlie: A chatbot to improve the elderly quality of life and to make them more active to fight their sense of loneliness

Abstract

The development of a conversation agent in the healthcare domain presents several technical, design and linguistic challenges. In our paper, we describe a chatbot conversing with elderly people, with age-related problems. A chatbot, named Charlie, able to remember commitments and medicines, connect remotely with doctors, family, entertain and assist elders. The idea is to investigate solutions to increase their quality of life by providing companionship through innovative strategies based on gamification, active notifications, and promotion of self-compassion that can be explored for preventive mental healthcare. The hope of helping the elderly is more needed than ever today due to the Covid-19 pandemic since lockdowns and isolation have disrupted social lives, affecting their mental health due to loneliness. In this paper, we also describe a preliminary evaluation of Charlie's personality and its level di acceptability by older people.