Keen On Aging

Most of us were handed the same retirement plan: max out the 401(k), count on Social Security, and let Medicare take care of health costs. But what if the way you're saving is quietly raising your Medicare premiums and shrinking your Social Security check? In this episode, I talk with Jim Capuano, who has spent nearly 20 years in the financial industry, including 15 years as a wholesaler worki...

Download my free Well-Being Checklist and get 25 actionable steps to help you thrive in this next chapter of life. - https://bit.ly/43XCD0m If you're caring for someone living with dementia, you may feel like you're failing them and failing yourself. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Macie P. Smith, a geriatric care manager, court-appointed guardian, and award-winning dementia educator with more th...

Independent living, assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing, CCRC: most families don't learn the difference until a crisis forces a fast decision. In this episode, Corinne talks with Jody Clayton, who has spent more than a decade in senior living and now works with Kisco Senior Living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jody explains what each level of care offers, who it's right for, and...

Most of us expect later life to be a slow slide downhill, but geriatrician Dr. Stephanie Rogers of UC San Francisco says the research shows the opposite. In this episode, she explains how people can build strength, protect their thinking, and grow happier in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. You'll learn the 4Ms of good care for older adults (mobility, mentation, medications, and what matters most) and...

Ginny MacColl started lifting weights in her 60s and it took her a full year of training to earn a single pull-up. Today she is 74, her best is 17 strict pull-ups, and she holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest female ninja competitor in the world. In this episode she walks through exactly how she built upper body strength from zero, why she hired a personal trainer before touching a weight...

My guest this week is Dr. Sara Margolin, a psychology professor at SUNY Brockport who wrote a textbook on the psychology of aging. She explains the research showing that what we believe about getting older actually changes what happens to us, including our menopause symptoms and how well we do on a memory test. We also get practical about the changes that are real, like vision in your 40s, hearing...

Nobody trains you for this. One day your mom or dad needs help, and suddenly you are the one handling the doctors, the money, the bad news, and the guilt that you are still not doing enough. Frances Hall has spent more than a decade with families in exactly that spot as the founder of ACAP, Adult Children of Aging Parents, which started as a small lunch group in 2012 and is now growing toward 18 c...

The Aging Psychologist Dr. Julie Erickson joins Keen on Aging to dismantle the assumption that who you are at 70 or 80 is fixed. She walks through the research showing that our capacity to change has almost nothing to do with age, that emotional well being actually improves in later life, and that the negative beliefs we absorb about aging can measurably shorten our lives. If you have ever caught...

Download my free Well-Being Checklist and get 25 actionable steps to help you thrive in this next chapter of life. - https://bit.ly/43XCD0m Getting older changes how you use your home, usually before you notice it happening. Interior designer Laura Redd joins Keen on Aging to help you see your own space differently. She makes the case for thinking about your home at 60 instead of scrambling at 80,...

Is your town actually built for you to grow old in it? Probably not, and Mark Hensley of AARP North Carolina says that is exactly why so many older adults lose their independence years before they have to. He and Dr. Corinne Auman get into the small, inexpensive stuff that makes an enormous difference, things like sidewalks, better lighting, grab bars, and a free home safety guide you can download...

In this episode, Dr. Corinne Auman sits down with George Fuller, founder of Fuller Life Navigating and author of Life Compass Living, who served as lead caregiver for all four of his and his wife's parents through the end of life and learned that most of the crises we dread are actually predictable. George calls these predictable transitions life quakes, and he shows keenagers how a plan and t...

Dementia is far more than memory loss, and this conversation with renowned dementia care expert Teepa Snow gives keenagers a practical roadmap for moving from fear and frustration to real connection. Teepa breaks down the difference between typical aging and dementia, explains why behaviors are signals of unmet needs, and shares her signature techniques for communicating through visual cues instea...

Most of us were raised to let someone else handle the money, and then one day we have to figure it out ourselves, usually with no training and a lot of fear. Debra Morrison spent 42 years as a financial planner, and her big message is simple: money is just a tool, and you are absolutely capable of using it. She and Dr. Corinne Auman talk through the stuff that quietly costs women over a lifetime,...

In this episode, aging life care manager Jennifer Szakaly explains why the hardest conversations about aging tend to go better when families start them early, long before a crisis forces the issue. She shows how to reframe the dreaded "you need some help" talk so it invites compromise instead of triggering a fight over independence, and why safety and freedom are not actually opposites....

Ande Lyons, lifelong entrepreneur and host of the Don't Be Caged By Your Age podcast, joins Dr. Corinne Auman to make the case that 65 is a starting line, not a finish line. She dismantles the tired stereotype that older adults are tech challenged, reminding listeners that boomers built the very technology everyone now takes for granted. Ande shares how she launched three businesses between th...

Estate planning attorney Sue Hunt of Focus Estate Solutions joins the show to demystify one of the most avoided topics in later life: wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. Drawing on three decades of experience, Sue reframes estate planning as an act of protection and choice, not a conversation about death, and explains why the real risk is what happens to you while you are still living. You will...

Some older adults are taking 18, 20, or even 26 medications a day, and many have no idea that the very pills meant to help them could be the cause of their fog, falls, or trips to the emergency room. In this episode, Dr. Corinne Auman sits down with Dr. DeLon Canterbury, a pharmacist and deprescribing expert who built his practice around a question most people never think to ask: do I still need a...

Most of us picture retirement as the finish line, the reward after decades of work where everything finally falls into place. In this episode, financial life planner and author Michael F. Kay challenges that idea, explaining why retirement is actually one of the most complicated transitions we ever face. Drawing on his work with more than 4,000 people and his Chapter X framework, he reveals why so...

Most people assume the doctor referring their loved one to assisted living or skilled nursing actually knows what those places are like, but they usually don't. In this episode, Bob Cain of Piedmont Home Care shares why he personally drives doctors and medical students through senior care facilities so they can see them from the inside, and he and host Dr. Corinne Auman explain what families n...

If you're somewhere between 45 and 80 and sensing that the cultural script for aging doesn't fit who you are or who you're becoming, this show is for you. The Keen On Aging Podcast is built on a simple idea: aging is a universal human experience, and the story we tell about it shapes the way we live it. The dominant cultural narrative — one of decline, fear, and invisibility — is outda...