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NCT06683443
Assessing the Effects of Robotic Pets on Patients With Dementia in the Acute Care Hospital Setting
NA trial testing Robotic Joy for All™ pet in Dementia in 106 participants. Completed in 29 December 2025.
29 December 2025
Quick facts
| Lead sponsor | Sarasota Memorial Health Care System |
|---|---|
| Phase | NA |
| Status | Completed |
| Study type | INTERVENTIONAL |
| Allocation | randomized |
| Design | parallel |
| Masking | none |
| Primary purpose | supportive care |
| Enrollment | 106 |
| Start date | 2 January 2024 |
| Primary completion | 29 December 2025 |
| Estimated completion | 29 December 2025 |
| Sites | 1 location across United States |
Drugs / interventions tested
- Robotic Joy for All™ pet
Conditions studied
Sponsor
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System
Who can join
65 and older, any sex, with Dementia or Delirium. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.
Sponsor's own description
Robotic pets can provide a source of affection and companionship for patients. This is especially important as individuals with dementia may receive infrequent visitation from family members if their families struggle with how to cope and communicate with their loved one. Several options such as the "Joy for All™" and "Paro" robotic pets offer a source of companionship that is both interactive and comforting. Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (SMHCS) researchers are seeking to make companion pets available to patients with dementia to provide them with a supplemental enrichment experience that enhances their overall care and lowers their risk for superimposed delirium. The intervention will consist of providing a robotic pet to the patient within 48 hours of admission, which the patient will keep with them throughout their hospital stay and upon discharge. SMHCS researchers will evaluate the effects of the robotic pet interaction on patient delirium scores, as measured by the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC), length of stay, and the use of intravenous psychotropic medications, code greys, falls occurrence, restraint use, and IV dislodgement in patients with mild-to-moderate dementia. The Nu-DESC scale is a short assessment tool, estimated to take approximately 3-5 minutes to complete and is already part of standard care at SMHCS. This tool is used by nursing staff with minimal additional training and shows consistent sensitivity (85.7%) and specificity (86.8%) in detecting delirium. The NuDESC score may be positive in a patient with dementia, since some characteristics of dementia can be similar to delirium. However, patients with dementia are at higher risk for developing delirium, so the NuDESC is a helpful tool for the nurse. A score of 2 or higher is considered screening positive for delirium. For this study, the NuDESC tool will be used as a guideline to assist in the screening of delirium. The patients will have to score a 4 or less to be included in the study. Patients that are scoring \>4 will be excluded. Theoretic Framework of Acceptability (TFA) is a questionnaire which will be used to assess health care provider acceptability of the companion animal. This tool is currently not in use at SMHCS, but it will be used as part of this study to assess whether health care providers accept (or reject) the robotic pets as companion animals.
Publications & conference data
No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.
Verify or expand the search:
- PubMed search for NCT06683443
- Europe PMC full search
- ASCO Meeting Library
- ESMO Meeting Library
- bioRxiv preprints
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Verify against primary sources
- ClinicalTrials.gov — authoritative US registry record
- WHO ICTRP — international registry index
- EU Clinical Trials Register
- Sponsor press releases (Google)
- Trial protocol + status: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06683443 (US National Library of Medicine, public domain)
- Drug + disease cross-links: matched in real time against Drug Landscape's normalised drug + company + condition tables
- Sponsor: as reported to ClinicalTrials.gov by Sarasota Memorial Health Care System
- Last refreshed: 17 March 2026
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