Elevate Eldercare

With the delta variant surging among the unvaccinated and the looming specter of increased restrictions even for those who've gotten their jabs, the cycles of uncertainty that defined most of 2020 are currently making an unwelcome comeback. But for people who live and work in communal settings for elders, the stakes are much higher than the return of mandatory masking in indoor public spaces: How...

Larry Polivka spent more than a decade as executive director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University before his retirement this past May. In episode 105, Susan Ryan and Alex Spanko explore both leaders' powerful legacies in the fight to revolutionize eldercare in America. In this edition "Let Me Say This About That", Marla and Mary take a closer look at the Claude Pepper Center and...

Larry Polivka spent more than a decade as executive director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University before his retirement this past May. In this episode, Susan Ryan and Alex Spanko explore both leaders' powerful legacies in the fight to revolutionize eldercare in America. Pepper's life took him from extreme poverty in Alabama to a lengthy career in both the U.S. House and Senate,...

Stephen Gordon has dedicated his career to improving eldercare services and supports, and during his time as a geriatrician and educator, he observed a trend among his fellow travelers: People tend to fall in love with a specific reform idea or organization, and then have trouble seeing the potential for connections and overlap with other novel models. As the CEO of Edenbridge Health, Gordon hopes...

Stephen Gordon has dedicated his career to improving eldercare services and supports, and during his time as a geriatrician and educator, he observed a trend among his fellow travelers: People tend to fall in love with a specific reform idea or organization, and then have trouble seeing the potential for connections and overlap with other novel models. As the CEO of Edenbridge Health, Gordon hopes...

Jennifer Sodo and Max Winters share a core belief about architecture: It's not just supposed to look nice, but actually improve people's lives. The senior associates at architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman joined Susan Ryan on "Elevate Eldercare" in Episode 101, to discuss how the built and natural environments are essential to creating inclusive, empowering communities for people living w...

Jennifer Sodo and Max Winters share a core belief about architecture: It's not just supposed to look nice, but actually improve people's lives. The senior associates at architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman join "Elevate Eldercare" to discuss how the built and natural environments are essential to creating inclusive, empowering communities for people living with Alzheimer's and other dement...

"Elevate Eldercare" hits a major milestone this week with 100 episodes. One of the underlying themes throughout those programs is the prevalence of ageism that permeates society. OR as Ashton Applewhite explains, "Ageism is a prejudice against our future selves." In this edition of "Let Me Say This About That", Marla and Mary explore ageism through the lens of Beliefs, Behaviors and Systems while...

"Elevate Eldercare" hits a major milestone this week with 100 episodes, so Susan Ryan sat down with the newest member of the Green House Project team to discuss the biggest ideas from the podcast's first year – and how they can be applied to the ongoing discussion around eldercare reform in America. Alex Spanko recently joined GHP as director of communications and marketing, having previously cove...

For Mindy Cheek, senior vice president at Greystone, diversity isn't a corporate policy or a buzzword; it's an integral part of daily life, and for those who have been victims of discrimination and hate, treating the need for diversity and inclusion as anything less misses the wider point about representation and dignity. Susan Ryan sat down with Mindy in episode 97.   In this episode of "Let Me S...

For Mindy Cheek, senior vice president at Greystone, diversity isn't a corporate policy or a buzzword; it's an integral part of daily life, and for those who have been victims of discrimination and hate, treating the need for diversity and inclusion as anything less misses the wider point about representation and dignity. In this interview with Susan Ryan, Cheek explores the ways her personal expe...

Have you ever thought of segregation as a form of restraint for an elder living with dementia? In this episode of "Let Me Say This About That" we explore that view of memory care and many other interesting perspectives on aging shared by Pat Sprigg.   Sprigg is the president and CEO of Carol Woods, a retirement community in North Carolina without locked wards or other barriers between people livin...

Pat Sprigg set off on her journey to change eldercare after observing firsthand the horrors of the "best practices" – powerful antipsychotic drugs and physical restraints – that were commonplace in the dementia treatment programs of the 1970s and 1980s. But even as many facilities moved away from such dangerous and dehumanizing strategies, Sprigg came to believe that the next wave of best practice...

Jennie Chin Hansen's career in aging services has taken her from a community operation in San Francisco's Chinatown to the presidency of AARP, all underpinned by a desire to view aging through a more holistic lens than the often one-size-fits-all institutional model.   Hansen's work as CEO of On Lok, an organization formed to care for Chinese American elders in San Francisco, helped inform the cre...

In the mid-1980s, Jennie Chin Hansen decided to move her ailing parents from Boston to her home in San Francisco so that they could live out their remaining years surrounded by family – and not in an institutional nursing home. Hansen's care journey for her father, who had suffered several strokes, was a continuation of the work she'd already done with On Lok, an innovative community program in Sa...

Susan Ryan sat down with Gail Kohn, coordinator of Age-Friendly DC – an ambitious and comprehensive program that seeks to make our nation's capital a more accessible and joyful place for seniors to live, from aging in place supports to community services to opportunities for forging intergenerational connections. We've all heard the phrase "it takes a village." Mary explores what it takes to devel...

Susan Ryan sits down with Gail Kohn, coordinator of Age-Friendly D.C.,   an initiative undertaken at the direction of the Mayor of Washington, D.C., as part of the broader World Health Organization-structured journey to help cities like D.C. become an easier city in which to grow older.   Previously, Kohn was the founding executive director for Capitol Hill Village, the second organization in the...

Susan Ryan sat down with Roger Myers, p resident and CEO of Presbyterian Villages of Michigan (PVM). In this recap, Marla and Mary discuss how Roger became an early adopter of the Green House model, opening two homes in Redford, Mich.   Mary discusses why Myers was so amazed during the ceremony that was conducted when they turned the house over to the Shahbazim and elders. In addition, we look at...

Susan Ryan sits down with Roger Myers, president and CEO of Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, (PVM), headquartered in Southfield, Mich. He talks about bringing the first Green House homes to Michigan as the second organization in the nation to embrace the innovative model.  Myers talks about how the decision was made, balancing risk with pursuit of innovation, and the impact of the model on his t...

Today we explore Serenbe, located in the hill country of South Fulton County, Georgia. It has been called a wellness sanctuary, an environmental prototype, an agrihood, even a utopia.   In Episode 87, Susan Ryan talked with Steve Nygren, founder, and CEO of Serenbe, a community created as a model to demonstrate that preserving 70 percent of green space interlaced with agriculture, housing, and ret...

Susan Ryan sits down with Steve Nygren, founder and CEO of Serenbe, an award-winning biophilic community that connects people to nature and each other. L ocated in Chattahoochee Hills, Ga., each of Serenbe's hamlets has a complementary commercial center focused on the elements of a well-lived life: arts for inspiration, agriculture for nourishment, health for wellbeing, and education for awareness...

Today we explore episode 85, where Susan Ryan sat down with Joel Anderson, president & CEO of LifeStar Living, a senior living development services, management, and advisory company located in Sarasota, Fla. Anderson has spent his 26-year executive career in directing both non-profit and for-profit senior living organizations. In this recap, Marla and Mary discuss the LifeStar Living organization...

Susan Ryan sits down with her good friend, Joel Anderson, president & CEO of LifeStar Living, a senior living development services, management, and advisory company located in Sarasota, Fla. Anderson has spent his 26-year executive career in directing both non-profit and for-profit senior living organizations.   In this episode, he discusses the backstory to starting his new venture, LifeStar Livi...

This week on "Let Me Say This About That," Marla DeVries and Mary Hopfner-Thomas recap episode 83, which features a conversation between Susan Ryan and Tammy Marshall, founder and CEO of Biophilia Pharma, a company that explores the healing power between nature and humans, as well as the benefits of non-pharmacological approaches to wellbeing. DeVries and Hopfner-Thomas take a deeper dive into the...

Susan Ryan welcomes back Tammy Marshall, founder and CEO of Biophilia Pharma. Marshall's journey to wellness, as well as to establishing Biophilia Pharma, exemplifies her passion around exploring the healing connection between nature and humans. In her first episode with Ryan, Marshall described a unique approach to addressing COVID cases and contrasted a 'salutogenic' vs pathogenic approach that...