Leveraging hun–robot interaction and virtual reality for digital biorkers in diagnostics and rehabilitation: a review from the Age-It Research Program

ObjectivesDigital biorkers are indicators of physiological and behavioral processes, collected from digital devices that are useful for cognitive and physical assessment in older adults. This study focuses on identifying digital biorkers emerging during robotic and virtual reality (VR)-based diagnostics and rehabilitation. It presents findings from a systetic review conducted within the activities of Spoke 9 (Advanced Gerontechnologies for Active and Healthy Ageing) of the Age-It Research Program.MethodsA literature review examined studies on digital biorkers in relation to the technologies of interest, focusing on aging, up to rch 25, 2025. Four hundred seventy-one English-written papers were retrieved; after screening, 19 studies were included. We sumrized them considering the application doin, identifying the corresponding digital biorkers, the target users, and the technology used.ResultsFor cognitive assessment, digital biorkers are used to monitor patient behaviors during clinical tasks that use VR-based technologies and social robots. In VR-based cognitive rehabilitation scenarios, digital biorkers are used to assess the perfornce of task accomplishment. In the physical activity monitoring doin, gait-related parameters are assessed by social robots, while therl cameras are used for thermodynamic analyses. In the physical rehabilitation doin, digital biorkers related to the upper-body motions are usually considered.DiscussionDespite promising results, several improvements are needed. Robotic solutions offer versatility in terms of applications but have low readiness. Similarly, thermodynamic models require strict conditions for reliability. Virtual reality-based cognitive assessment lacks temporal data for better discrimination, and VR-based cognitive rehabilitation is limited by a lack of multimodal stimulation. Future research should address these limitations effectively.