Dialogue agents for artificial intelligence-based conversational systems for cognitively disabled: a systematic review

PurposeWe present a systematic literature review of dialogue agents for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and agent-based conversational systems dealing with cognitive disability of aged and impaired people including dementia and Parkinson's disease. We analyze current applications, gaps, and challenges in the existing research body, and provide guidelines and recommendations for their future development and use.Materials and methodsWe perform this study by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria. We performed a systematic search using relevant databases (ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Scopus).ResultsThis study identified 468 articles on the use of conversational agents in healthcare. We finally selected 124 articles based on their objectives and content as directly related to our main topic.ConclusionWe identified the main challenges in the field and analyzed the typical examples of the application of conversational agents in the healthcare domain, the desired characteristics of conversational agents, and chatbot support for aged people and people with cognitive disabilities. Our results contribute to a discussion on conversational health agents and emphasize current knowledge gaps and challenges for future research.