Objective

We examined the potential of conversational agents (CAs) to support older adults’ self-care related to chronic illness in light of lessons learned from decades of pedagogical agent research, which investigates the impact and efficacy of CAs for a wide range of learners.

Background

The role of CAs in education (i.e., pedagogical agents) has been long studied, but their potential for supporting self-care has received less attention, especially for older adults.

Methods

We reviewed work on pedagogical agents and considered how it informs the design of CAs for older adults. We propose a framework for designing CAs to support older adult self-care, which organizes a review of work in this area and integration with the pedagogical agent literature.

Results

Our review of the pedagogical agent literature revealed an evolution from teaching machines to interactive, social systems that influence student motivational as well as learning outcomes. To integrate this review with work on CAs and self-care, we developed a framework that specifies how self-care goals evolve with stages of an illness, communication goals that support self-care at each stage, patient needs, and requirements for CAs to support these needs. The review identified an agenda for future research on CA functions and features that help older adults accept need for self-care, establish self-care, and sustain self-care over time.

Conclusions

Integrating insights from the pedagogical agent literature with research on developing CAs for self-care defines an agenda for developing and evaluating CAs to help older adults manage illness.

中文翻译：

---

支持老年人健康自我保健的对话代理设计框架

客观的

我们根据数十年的教学代理研究的经验教训，研究了对话代理 (CA) 支持老年人与慢性病相关的自我护理的潜力，该研究调查了对话代理对广泛学习者的影响和功效。

背景

CA 在教育中的作用（即教学媒介）早已被研究，但其支持自我保健的潜力却很少受到关注，特别是对于老年人而言。

方法

我们回顾了有关教学媒介的工作，并考虑了它如何为老年人设计 CA。我们提出了一个设计 CA 以支持老年人自我护理的框架，该框架组织了对该领域工作的回顾以及与教学代理文献的整合。

结果

我们对教学代理文献的回顾揭示了从教学机器到影响学生动机和学习成果的互动社交系统的演变。为了将本次审查与 CA 和自我护理工作结合起来，我们开发了一个框架，该框架详细说明了自我护理目标如何随疾病阶段而演变、支持每个阶段自我护理的沟通目标、患者需求以及 CA 的要求支持这些需求。该审查确定了未来关于 CA 功能和特征的研究议程，以帮助老年人接受自我护理的需要，建立自我护理，并随着时间的推移维持自我护理。

结论

将教育代理文献的见解与开发自我保健 CA 的研究相结合，确定了开发和评估 CA 来帮助老年人管理疾病的议程。