A Conversational Agent for Empowering People with Parkinson’s Disease in Exercising Through Motivation and Support

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms. The MoveONParkinson project aims to enhance exercise engagement among people with Parkinson’s Disease (PwPD) in the Portuguese context through the ONParkinson digital platform, which provides mobile and web interfaces. While the broader MoveONParkinson project has been previously described from a health-focused perspective, this study specifically focuses on the development and integration of an AI-driven conversational agent (CA) for the Portuguese language, called PANDORA, within the mobile interface of the solution to assist and motivate PwPD in their exercise routines. PANDORA (Parkinson Assistant in Natural Dialogue and Oriented by Rules and Assessments), designed based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), addresses the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. A preliminary study involving 20 PwPD, 10 caregivers, and 5 healthcare professionals informed the design requirements for PANDORA. The development process involved four main phases: (1) Design of the Chatbot’s Motivation Model, (2) Design and implementation of the conversational agent, (3) Technical Performance Evaluation, and (4) User Experience Evaluation. Technical Performance Evaluation, conducted with three physiotherapists, assessed domain coverage, coherence response capacity, and dialog management capacity, achieving 100% accuracy in domain coverage and coherence response capacity and 89% in dialog management capacity. The User Experience Study involved eight PwPD users recruited from Portuguese healthcare units performing predefined tasks, with user satisfaction scores ranging from 4.2 to 4.9 on a five-point Likert scale. The findings indicate that integrating a conversational agent with motivational cues tends to increase patient engagement. However, further studies are required to determine PANDORA’s impact on exercise engagement in PwPD.