Recent technological advances enabled modern robots to become part of our daily life. In particular, assistive robotics emerged as an exciting research topic that can provide solutions to improve the quality of life of elderly and vulnerable people. This paper introduces the robotic platform developed in the ENRICHME project, with particular focus on its innovative perception and interaction capabilities. The project’s main goal is to enrich the day-to-day experience of elderly people at home with technologies that enable health monitoring, complementary care, and social support. The paper presents several modules created to provide cognitive stimulation services for elderly users with mild cognitive impairments. The ENRICHME robot was tested in three pilot sites around Europe (Poland, Greece, and UK) and proven to be an effective assistant for the elderly at home.

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has opened new frontiers in mental health, particularly in stress detection and management. This review explores the current literature, examining how IoT-enabled wearables, sensors, and mobile applications, combined with AI algorithms, are utilized to monitor physiological and behavioral indicators of stress. Advancements in real-time stress detection, personalized interventions, and predictive modeling are highlighted, alongside a critical evaluation of existing technologies. While significant progress has been made in the field, several limitations persist, including challenges with the accuracy of stress detection, the scalability of solutions, and the generalizability of AI models across diverse populations. Key challenges are further analyzed, such as ensuring data privacy and security, achieving seamless technological integration, and advancing model personalization to account for individual variability in stress responses. Addressing these challenges is essential to developing robust, ethical, and user-centric solutions that can transform stress management in mental healthcare. This review concludes with recommendations for future research directions aimed at overcoming current barriers and enhancing the effectiveness of IoT- and AI-driven approaches to stress management.

Assisted wheelchair navigation is of key importance for persons with severe disabilities. The problem has been solved in different ways, usually based on the shared control paradigm. This paradigm consists of giving the user more or less control on a need basis. Naturally, these approaches require personalization: each wheelchair user has different skills and needs and it is hard to know a priori from diagnosis how much assistance must be provided. Furthermore, since there is no such thing as an average user, sometimes it is difficult to quantify the benefits of these systems. This paper proposes a new method to extract a prototype user profile using real traces based on more than 70 volunteers presenting different physical and cognitive skills. These traces are clustered to determine the average behavior that can be expected from a wheelchair user in order to cope with significant situations. Processed traces provide a prototype user model for comparison purposes, plus a simple method to obtain without supervision a skill-based navigation profile for any user while he/she is driving. This profile is useful for benchmarking but also to determine the situations in which a given user might require more assistance after evaluating how well he/she compares to the benchmark. Profile-based shared control has been successfully tested by 18 volunteers affected by left or right brain stroke at Fondazione Santa Lucia, in Rome, Italy.