AI answers dementia patients' calls in caregivers' voices to ease family burden

For many people with early-stage dementia, loneliness means calling the same family member dozens of times a day. While patients seek reassurance, repeated calls can leave caregivers emotionally exhausted and unable to work.

To address this challenge, Bobath Memorial Hospital and Daehong Inc., an advertising agency, set out to explore whether generative AI could provide a practical solution.

After more than a year of collaboration, the partners launched "A.I. ways Call," an emotional support campaign for people with dementia. Powered by generative AI, the system learns an individual caregiver's voice, speech patterns, and conversational style, enabling it to answer patients' frequent phone calls in a voice that closely resembles the caregiver's and to carry on natural conversations on the caregiver's behalf.

A.I. ways Call, a dementia support campaign jointly developed by Daehong Inc. and Bobath Memorial Hospital, won the Silver Award at the 2026 New York Festivals.

The campaign recently received the Silver Award in the "THE FUTURE NOW" category at the 2026 New York Festivals, which recognizes innovative technology-driven ideas. Judges praised the project for combining technology and creativity to address the social issues of dementia care and emotional separation anxiety.

Korea Biomedical Review recently spoke with Dr. Na Hae-ri, director of Bobath Memorial Hospital and the medical advisor for the campaign, about how the project grew out of challenges encountered in the clinic and how AI could reshape the future of dementia care.

Filling the care gap with AI

Question: How did a hospital end up collaborating with an advertising agency?

Answer: Our relationship with Daehong began when the company participated in the renovation of our hospital. As they became more familiar with the clinical environment, they began to think about the social role an advertising agency could play. They approached us first, suggesting we create a meaningful collaborative campaign that combines medical expertise with creative thinking.

Initially, they proposed something closer to an experimental research project—using reminiscence therapy and other non-pharmacological interventions for dementia patients while observing changes in brain activity and cognitive function.

However, similar clinical studies already existed, making it difficult to create something truly distinctive. There were also significant limitations due to patient consent requirements, personal data protection, and medical ethics.

So I suggested transforming the idea into a project that could provide tangible benefits to patients and their families in the AI era.

Daehong shared our vision. Rather than creating a one-time promotional campaign, the company genuinely wanted to raise public awareness of dementia and help ease the burden on family caregivers. Aligning our goals and developing the technology while strictly adhering to medical ethics ultimately took more than a year.

Q: A.I. ways Call highlights the importance of maintaining emotional bonds between dementia patients and their families. Why was it so important to recreate conversations that feel as though patients are speaking with their real family members?

A: Many dementia patients experience sundowning, during which anxiety and agitation intensify in the evening, as well as separation anxiety when they are apart from their caregivers.

In the past, some caregivers recorded messages in their own voices for patients to listen to. But those recordings were one-way communication. The same messages were repeated over and over, making it impossible to respond to what patients actually wanted to say.

To address patients' unmet emotional needs and anxiety, real-time interaction is essential. When patients speak, the AI must respond immediately in the caregiver's voice, enabling a genuine back-and-forth conversation.

From a medical perspective, conversation is far more than simply hearing sounds. It is a sophisticated cognitive process that involves understanding another person's words, processing them, and formulating a response. That interactive process itself provides auditory and cognitive stimulation, which may help activate brain function in people with dementia.

Achieving this required extraordinary technical precision. We had to teach the AI to reproduce the speech characteristics common among older adults, including regional dialects, while also capturing each family member's unique intonation, speaking speed, and even the private expressions and ways of addressing one another that exist only within a family.

Only when this familiar, comforting two-way communication occurs through a loved one's voice can it help stabilize the brain's limbic system, which regulates emotion. We believe this can meaningfully reduce patients' feelings of isolation and separation anxiety

Why an old-fashioned phone was the right technology

Q: AI services for dementia could take many forms. Why did you choose the telephone, a relatively analog medium?

A: People with dementia largely belong to the analog generation.

As cognitive function declines, operating smartphone chatbots becomes virtually impossible. In many cases, the only thing patients can comfortably do on a smartphone is press numbers saved in their favorites.

Even in our outpatient clinic, patients often call the hospital's main number 10 or 20 times a day simply because they have questions about their medication or treatment.

The same thing happens at home. Many patients repeatedly call their caregivers because they feel lonely or anxious, to the point that their children struggle to maintain normal working lives.

For older adults with cognitive impairment, the telephone remains the most familiar, accessible, and realistic way to communicate and seek emotional comfort.

Q: How did you address patient privacy and medical ethics during development?

A: Because generative AI directly interacts with vulnerable patients, we devoted considerable attention to ethical issues and personal data protection.

Since the system learns family members' voices, there were understandable concerns about leaks of personal information or the potential misuse of voice data for crimes such as voice phishing.

As a medical institution, it was equally important that every aspect of the project remained within established medical ethical standards.

We carefully considered patient consent, data protection, and the ethical procedures required throughout the project to ensure the project ultimately benefited patients and their families.

Q: How did patients respond when the service was introduced?

A: We deliberately excluded patients with severe dementia who had significant communication difficulties. Instead, we focused on people in the early stages of dementia whose repeated phone calls to caregivers were seriously disrupting their families' work and daily lives.

The results exceeded our expectations, and caregivers responded overwhelmingly positively.

One participant, an elderly woman living in a nursing home, suffered from severe loneliness and separation anxiety. She repeatedly called her daughter at work throughout the day, making it nearly impossible for her to continue working.

After using the service, she was able to have unlimited conversations with the AI instead. Her daughter no longer experienced the constant stress and emotional burden that accompanied every incoming call during work.

Medically, the ongoing conversations also provided continuous auditory and cognitive stimulation, helping activate brain function while stabilizing emotions and reducing patients' feelings of isolation and depression.

Beyond technology: A public mission

Q: What challenges remain before A.I. ways Call can be commercialized?

A: I hope the system will eventually be refined and officially launched.

But improving the technology itself is only part of the challenge. Equally important is ensuring that the technology spreads in the right direction.

I firmly believe it should never be used primarily for the private interests of a particular company or individual. Instead, it should serve the public good by helping solve dementia, which is becoming a national challenge.

To achieve that, collaboration with public healthcare organizations—such as the National Dementia Center and regional Dementia Relief Centers across the country—is essential.

When integrated into public infrastructure, we can better address data security concerns while ensuring the technology reaches families who need it most.

Q: Although A.I. ways Call received international recognition at an advertising festival, its significance seems to lie in using technology to solve real healthcare problems. What broader vision does Bobath Memorial Hospital hope to realize through this campaign?

A: I previously served as director of the Seongnam Senior Health Center, where I oversaw dementia policy for Seongnam City. That experience gave me a deep interest in public dementia programs and policymaking.

Although Bobath Memorial Hospital is operated by a private foundation, one of our core values is social contribution.

Some people may think of us as a "luxury nursing hospital," but I don't believe our mission should be limited to caring only for patients who can afford premium services.

As a private hospital, we have the flexibility to adopt new technologies quickly, along with outstanding medical professionals and abundant clinical resources.

I want us to proactively develop programs that support socially vulnerable populations and then return those innovations to society for the public good.

Rather than simply treating patients, we hope to become a model institution that integrates advanced technologies such as generative AI into geriatric medicine and long-term care while creating meaningful social value.