## 8 Conclusions and Future Work  
Our goal overall is to empower Older Adults (OAs) to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. OAs must maintain their cognitive and physical abilities to take care of their households (i.e., make sound financial decisions, clean, etc.) and themselves (i.e., Activities of Daily Living, such as feeding, toileting, and ambulation). OAs may reach a point at which they need more frequent assistance, and help from robots is one possible means to successfully aging in place. This paper explores robotic embodiments designed to assist OAs with mobility, focusing on sit-to-stand (STS) support. We designed 3 robot embodiments and depicted their use in a series of animations: _PILLAR_: A minimally articulated robot with mobile grab bars for minimal assistance; _DUIO_: A two-robot team including a motorized stool (Scoot) and a ceiling-mounted, dexterous robot (Dex); _TRIbot_: A humanoid, highly dexterous robot with a wheeled base for independent mobility. The detailed design of the robot embodiments themselves and the human-robot interactions allowed OA participants to suspend disbelief when they viewed the animation, and verbalize their thoughts, opinions, preferences, and concerns in group discussions. Ultimately, we found that _OAs preferred the independently mobile robot with a human-like build_, TRIbot, for caregiving assistance. We found that OAs also desired a _general purpose_ home-helper robot that could perform tasks beyond physically assisting with sit-to-stand; since a robot would take up space in their home and potentially require home modification, OAs wanted the robot to also help with other household tasks and chores, like grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry, thus serving multiple functions. Some OAs equated the robot's _softness_ to _safety_ and _human-likeness_, such as comfort and warmth, all of which are desirable traits in a caregiving robot. Overwhelmingly, OAs imagined themselves _speaking_ to the robot. Some wanted to only give verbal commands to the robot, while others were interested in further social conversations that could potentially foster a companion-type relationship. Combined, our recommendations for roboticists developing caregiving robots for domestic environments are that:  
* The robot should have a humanoid form factor. * The robot should move independently within the home. * The robot should have a speech interface for Care Receivers (CRs) to verbally give commands to the robot. The robot should support social conversation as desired by the CR. * The robot should have dexterous manipulators sufficient to accomplish caregiving and general purpose tasks. * The robot should be multi-purpose and perform household tasks as desired by the CR. _Giving care_ to someone has such humanness and tenderness to it, yet the _act of caregiving_ all too often lacks the humanity that we as people crave. Familial and professional caregivers (CGs) first have to focus on the functional support needed for Activities of Daily Living; unfortunately, their time and energy are insufficient to address the social human touch that Care Receivers (CRs) desire. Our goal is to amplify OAs' independence and quality of life, enabling them to successfully age in place. In the future, a caregiving robot might provide assistance regarding the CRs' activities of daily living, thus freeing CGs to have more active social interactions with CRs. Alternatively, when the CR has no one to socially interact with, it may be beneficial for a caregiving robot to also be a companion or even a friend. The research in this specific paper answers questions about _what_ the appropriate robot embodiment is, but _how_ the robot should behave when engaging with the CR to provide mobility, stability, and transfer assistance and _what_ their relationship looks like requires further investigation.