PAIN AND STRESS MANAGEMENT USING CONNECTED SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL ROBOTS AND WEARABLES

EMILIA BARAKOVA

Biography
Emilia Barakova is Assistant Professor of Socially Intelligent Systems. She is the head of the Social Robotics Lab and leader of the Physical and Social Rehabilitation educational squad. Barakova is an expert in the field of embodied social interaction with and through technology, social, cognitive and brain-inspired robotics, modeling expressiveness of movement and designing technologies for individuals in social isolation and special needs groups. She has specialized in combining methods from neuro- and cognitive sciences, robotics, and computational intelligence to model social behavior.

Barakova has organized three international conferences (1 ACM, 2 IEEE and has been invited as Keynote speaker at many international conferences. She has served as an intermediate director of German-Japanese Research Lab in Japan.

Abstract
Numerous user groups, including adults with dementia, intellectual disabilities, and young children in postoperative care, face challenges in accurately expressing their stress, , pain, and worries. To address these issues, we combined robots, wearables, and mobile apps, to transform social robots into effective tools for promoting positive affect, and distraction from pain. In our robot-assisted therapies, we integrated contextual aspects such as a hospital or care home settings, along with the active involvement of caregivers and parents. Through this multidimensional approach, we aimed to provide tailored support to diverse user populations and facilitate their well-being and quality of life.