Podcast appearances and mentions of Sarah L Szanton

A common stereotype of aging is an era of decline and shrinking horizons, but the process of aging is far more nuanced. Many find their health and functional trajectories actually widen as they get older. In fact some, like President Joe Biden or pioneering nurse-midwife Ruth Lubic, won't make their greatest contributions until their later years. Key to staying healthy as we age is maintaining or improving health, which largely falls outside of healthcare facilities. Led by Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN, the CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders) program brings together a nurse, an occupational therapist and a handy worker to address the home environment, while encouraging the strengths of older adults to improve safety, independence, and dignity based on the client's goals. By installing small, cost effective adaptations to the home environment, older adults can ease the navigation of daily living – bathing, dressing, standing to cook, using stairs – sustaining their physical, mental, and emotional energy and leading to richer lives full of creativity and meaningful contribution. Email us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.

A common stereotype of aging is an era of decline and shrinking horizons. The reality is far more nuanced. The process of aging isn’t uniform and many will find their health and functional trajectories widening as they get older. In fact some, like President Joe Biden or pioneering nurse-midwife Ruth Lubic, won’t make their greatest contributions until their later years. A key to healthy aging is maintaining or improving your health, which for our oldest adults, largely falls outside of healthcare facilities. For many, health allows us to feel safe wherever we are. Led by Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN, the CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders) program aims to improve both the function and cost of elderly care, by teaming a nurse, an occupational therapist and a handy worker to address the home environment, while encouraging the strengths of the older adults themselves to improve safety, independence, and ensuring dignity based on the client’s goals. By installing small, cost effective yet thoughtful adaptations to the home environment, older adults can ease the navigation of activities of daily living—things like bathing, dressing, standing to cook, moving up and down stairs—that sustain and promote their physical, mental, and emotional energy—leading to richer lives full of creativity and meaningful contribution. Email us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com. For additional resources, visit our website at www.seeyounowpodcast.com.

In Season 2, we talked about Aging in Place with the founder of HomesRenewed, which focused on ways to make the built environment work for people who wish to remain in their own homes or apartments and avoid moving into a facility if at all possible.In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sarah Szanton, one of the founders of the CAPABLE Project (https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE), which takes the problem of aging in place a step further – addressing both the physical space and the functional limitations of the resident. When you pay attention to both the house and the body, the results can be amazing.Resources mentioned in this podcast include:-The CAPABLE Project: https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE-Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl (originally published in 1946)About Our Guest:Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN is the Endowed Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice and Director of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.While making house calls to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, Dr. Szanton noticed that her patients’ environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. As a result of her observations, she and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University developed a program of research on the role that the environment and functional limitations play in the ability of older adults to “age in place” or stay out of a nursing home. The result is the CAPABLE Project - Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, and decrease healthcare costs.

In Season 2, we talked about Aging in Place with the founder of HomesRenewed, which focused on ways to make the built environment work for people who wish to remain in their own homes or apartments and avoid moving into a facility if at all possible.In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sarah Szanton, one of the founders of the CAPABLE Project (https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE), which takes the problem of aging in place a step further – addressing both the physical space and the functional limitations of the resident. When you pay attention to both the house and the body, the results can be amazing.Resources mentioned in this podcast include:-The CAPABLE Project: https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE-Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl (originally published in 1946)About Our Guest:Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN is the Endowed Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice and Director of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.While making house calls to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, Dr. Szanton noticed that her patients’ environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. As a result of her observations, she and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University developed a program of research on the role that the environment and functional limitations play in the ability of older adults to “age in place” or stay out of a nursing home. The result is the CAPABLE Project - Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, and decrease healthcare costs.

Date: February 22, 2018 Featuring: Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN, Associate Director for Policy, Center on Innovative Care in Aging, Department of Health Policy and Management, & Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Judith Kell, MPA, Manager, Pathways to Better Health, Mercy Health Gary Felser, ME, Construction Supervisor, Elder Services at Civic Works One of the biggest challenges facing older patients with disabilities is that the care and support services needed to function optimally at home are often fragmented — and not always obtainable. Thi​s is especially true for low-income disabled adults whose home circumstances may not fit the bill, literally and figuratively, for what public insurers such as Medicaid and Med​icare will cover. In a handful of communities in the US, a program called CAP​ABLE​ is demonstrating low-cost, practical ways to fill the void. The research into the health benefits and cost savings associated with CAPABLE are yielding impressive results. Learn how the model works and how it might be spread to other communities on this episode of WIHI: Aging in Place with a Disability and Dignity