A Framework for the Specification of Multifunctional, Adaptive, and Realistic Virtual Companions for Later Life

Independence in everyday life is a concern of many frail older people. There is a vision that in the near future this group will considerably gain independence and improve their quality of life by relying not only on human caregivers – who cannot grant round-the-clock assistance – but in addition on smart computer-based help capable of imitating human care-giving behaviour. This vision is expressed in the metaphor of creating ‘virtual companions’ for later life. In the first part of this paper, we point out three major requirements that have to be met by assistive high technology before it can claim to realise the vision: (1) Instead of solving a specific problem in a specific way, an elderly person's virtual companion has to be multifunctional. (2) Instead of serving only a small target group, a virtual companion should be able to adapt its behaviour to many elderly users’ situations of life. (3) To supply realistic help, a virtual companion should not be specified by software engineers alone, but in dialogue with the user, caregivers, and experts. In the second part of the paper, we suggest a framework for creating virtual companions that do meet the requirements.