Episode Summary
Most people don’t think about aging in place until they’re already in crisis — a fall, a health scare, or a sudden caregiving demand forces the conversation. But according to our guest, that’s exactly the wrong time to start planning.
In this episode, Melissa Therrien, RN and General Manager of Ohana Care, sits down with Sue Lantz — aging-in-place strategist, author of Options Open: The Guide for Mapping Your Best Aging Journey, and Founder of Collaborative Aging — to explore what it truly means to age in place with intention. Sue brings a powerful, empowerment-based framework that repositions aging in place not as something that happens to you, but as a journey you actively design.
Drawing on her Collaborative Aging framework — which spans five interconnected strategies (Health, Housing, Social Relationships, Caregiving Teams, and Resources) — Sue and Melissa explore the practical, emotional, and systemic dimensions of living well in your home and community. They’ll also address Canada’s strained care infrastructure, the role of community and professional support, and what families and older adults can do right now, regardless of where they are on the aging journey.
This episode is for anyone who wants to take control of their aging story — and for the families, caregivers, and health professionals who support them.
Episode Transcript
Melissa (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome back to Caring Conversations. Can you believe it? This is episode 12. We’ve had a little bit of a hiatus, but we’re back and we’re very excited today. Today we have an episode we’re titling Planning to Age in Place starts before you need help. And we have a guest speaker today with me, Sue Lantz. So before I go into your introduction, Sue,
I just want to chat quickly about what our episode is going to be about and then we’ll dive right in because I think we have a lot to chat about today. And I’m very excited to hear about what you have to bring to the conversation today. So most people don’t think about home care or what aging in place looks like until they’re already in a crisis. We hear this all the time. A fall, a health care scare, sudden caregiving demand forces.
people to give us a shout and according to you Sue, that’s exactly the wrong time to start planning. And certainly this is a conversation that we have on a regular basis as Ohana Care and our team. And I’m sure you have a large audience of people that come and chat with you Sue about each of these items. So Sue Lantz is the founder and managing director of Collaborative Aging.
She is also an author of Options Open, The Guide to Mapping Your Best Aging Journey. She serves on the Advisory Committee of 880 cities. For Ontario Community Changemakers Initiative. She is the member, she’s a member of the City of Toronto Senior Strategy 2.0 Table, former inaugural advisory board member of the National Institute on Aging.
delivers multiple different workshops at five part planning workshops nationally to retiree associations, employee wellness groups and community organizations, and is currently a research partner at The Humber Polytechnic, where she produced the student podcast series, Aging Out Loud, mapping the future of how we live. So welcome, Sue. I’m so excited to have you.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (02:05)
⁓ thank you.
Great to be here, Melissa. Thank you for inviting me to join your conversations. I’m really looking forward to our discussion.
Melissa (02:13)
Yeah.
We’re on opposite ends of the country today, but through the virtual platform, we were able to come together and I’m so very excited to chat with you. So thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be here with us. So let’s dive right in. I think the introduction just left so much for us to chat about. So yeah, I mean, why don’t you start with just
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (02:18)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa (02:37)
digging a little deeper into your experience and what you offer your communities. And, you know, what is collaborative aging?
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (02:46)
Okay, I first of all your comments in the beginning around home care and how you find people or people find Ohana care. My experience was very much similar to yours in that I’ve been in the Ontario home care system. And I’ve been involved in design projects where I started to see this trend of people always seeking help and in a crisis. And so
The work I’m doing now and have been doing for the last six years is in founding collaborative aging, I realized that a lot of people don’t recognize that aging well is a collaborative process. We need the help of others and actually often we help each other. And so that’s the name collaborative aging. But the real…
key message here in the work I’ve been doing with the Options Open Guide and all the educative work recently is to help people step into the mode of recognizing they actually have a choice. They have the main choice of avoiding crisis situations, but the way they arrive at having choice and having agency over the later stages of life is to step in earlier.
and to not just plan but make arrangements and organize a few things in a timely way to ready themselves for the later life stages and to ready those they love. those they love may end up being ⁓ playing a role as a part of a caregiving team. So the last six years I have been really
devoting myself and the work I do to preparing my peers. I’m in my 60s and if we start in our 50s or 60s to be thinking about the gift of longevity of our 80s and 90s, then we can very systematically make some informed choices over time that set us up and situate us for success. And what is success?
Most people say in every national poll, aging in place, aging in community, it’s being part of the community, it’s belonging. And that involves caring your home and care at the right time and also the right housing. yeah, so I could talk for a long time, but basically what I’m trying to do with the work I’m doing, educatively, the guidebook, the workshops.
And now the project with Humber Polytechnic is really setting up the enabling environment and tools and resources to help people make those preparations and plans.
Melissa (05:26)
Because isn’t it true that you don’t really have a choice when it comes to a crisis? You know, your choices become so limited once the crisis has already happened. There’s no opportunities for us to educate, to think outside the box, to look at all the resources available. It’s very much like we need a decision yesterday kind of thing. So I love the planning.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (05:45)
Yes, and often,
I don’t know if you find this, but a lot of times people are making decisions as they leave a hospital bed. And that’s hard because sometimes people can’t even come home to the home they’ve had. It’s 10 steps into the front door.
Melissa (05:54)
Hmm. Dizziest days, Fridays.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (06:06)
You know, there isn’t the right amenities nearby. ⁓ They, you know, they don’t have care nearby or caregivers. There’s all sorts of factors that go into the mix. And so when you’re transitioning from hospital to home, that’s not the time to be making these preparations. You want to be in a home already that allows you to transition smoothly, right?
Melissa (06:31)
Yeah, yeah. And
I think the idea of community changes in crisis as well, where you truly believe you can rely on your loved ones. And sure, that first weekend, you may be able to piecemeal it together and be able to get the support that you need. But come Monday, when everyone needs to go back to their lives, what does that look like, right? ⁓ Yeah, think whether you’re
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (06:36)
Yes.
⁓ Yes. I talk in terms of,
yeah, setting up caregiving in a way that’s sustainable and balanced for you and for the people you’re relying on. And I talk about caregiving in the context of a team and that team being paid and unpaid. And you need to, depending on your family, social circumstances and circle,
Melissa (06:58)
Mm-hmm.
for sure.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (07:16)
Sometimes you have to have more paid people than unpaid. And really that is a negotiated process, as you say. A lot of older people have family members, but they’re busy with their kids and their jobs and all those things, the aspects of their life. What would be the most balanced and sustainable role for them to play on your team? It might be helping you with your home. It might be…
helping you with your finances remotely or what, you know, there’s so many tasks involved in caring for oneself and also your dwelling. yeah, don’t assume, right? We can’t assume. have to think and prepare and have conversations and make some very definite organizational plans like advanced care plans and powers of attorney.
Melissa (07:54)
Hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (08:07)
the legal things we have to do as well. So, lots we can do to set things up well.
Melissa (08:14)
Yeah. And so let’s just pull back a little bit and talk about what aging in place looks like. Like to you and I, that’s very much what we talk about on a daily basis. So for someone who’s looking at, you know, starting their estate planning and starting to talk about what, you know, aging and what that process looks like, and maybe what end of life looks like, what is aging in place?
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (08:40)
Mm-hmm. Well, there’s a technical definition of aging in place to sort of age comfortably, safely in your community. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has that technical definition. I have, I’ve paraphrased it. But what I say is, yes, that’s a good technical definition. But when we think about it, we need to think about it in terms of visualizing what I want to experience or what you want to experience as you age.
Melissa (09:04)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (09:06)
What does aging in community mean to you? What is your vision for that? Is it to stay in the existing home you’re in or community you’re in or is it to move to a smaller community or is it to, you know, move even some people move further downtown into condos and so they’re near everything that’s walkable. You and I, no one person, no, no, you know, we’re all different. We’re diverse in what
what aging in community can mean to us. And so what I do with my workshops is really try to help people start visualizing, well, what are the models that I’ve been exposed to? Who have I known that has aged well and gracefully and felt fulfilled or remained, know, included in their family and community? How did that go? How did it look? How did they, what choices did they make?
And once you start thinking about those models, then you start applying them to, what would make sense for me? And I talk in terms of visualizing an experience set of experiences you want and a set of risks you want to reduce. And also thinking of it like we would planning a trip where we really would never get on a plane without visualizing where we’re going.
Melissa (10:04)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (10:22)
and what we want to experience, who we want to experience it with, what risks there are. Do I need visas and paperwork and vaccines, travel insurance? What’s my budget? What can I afford? You’re thinking about a lot of these sort of what I call planning lanes. And we have all these tools to help us plan our trips. And we can decide, is it all inclusive? Is it not? Is it with friends? Is it adventure? We’re doing so much visualizing and
Spending hours actually before we get on that plane. Well, why wouldn’t we take that same approach and apply it to later life? And we know that a lot of people avoid that thinking because we’re ageist in a way towards ourselves even we’re fearful of aging. It’s not like a trip, but it is a journey. It is a gift of later life if we live long enough. So why wouldn’t we?
organize it in a way that gives us the best experience.
Melissa (11:19)
Yeah, and you wouldn’t go on a trip and hope that it just happens to work out. But we definitely leave aging kind of to whatever happens. I hope for the best, but whatever happens, we’ll just go with. That’s a scary thought.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (11:24)
No, no you wouldn’t.
Exactly,
exactly. care in your home is a big part of that experience. If you want to age in your community, at some point, your mobility will change, maybe your cognitive abilities change, and you will need some help in your home. A. Managing the home, like the, you know, food, maintenance, whatever. If you’re in an actual house, you need like
snow shoveling in Canada and gardening, you know, there’s those kind of help. Then we start to also need personal supports, help with bathing or dressing, things that are more routine or even more health oriented or, you know, cognitively oriented. So we have to factor in that we will at some point likely need help in our home and care in our home. And we have to think about the costs and
and what companies are out there and which ones are the reliable trustworthy ones and which ones are not right that that’s just like travel planning you you you’re already kind of gazing at maps and looking at what’s where and and what things you want to experience or what areas you might want to avoid the same holds true with with care in your home you you want to find trusted sources of of care
And the same if you were looking at, say, retirement residences. Which ones are the right fit for you? Which ones are the high quality ones that you can really feel confident in? That’s a process of researching and exploring, right, before you need to.
Melissa (13:05)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. And understanding all of the options available, right? In a crisis, as I said before, your options are very limited. When you are planning in advance, you can really explore what’s out there. I can’t speak to what happens in Ontario, but certainly in Alberta and BC, there are options that never get spoken about when you’re in a hospital setting, you know, private home care or
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (13:13)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Melissa (13:33)
private senior living residences, all of the tiers that are involved, private hospice care even, you know, and I think it’s very much that research process. you know, I, from personal experience, I know that people will go out and they will tour, you know, their senior residences and they’ll put their name on wait lists and things like that. But that’s only a part of the puzzle really. And many people think of that as like, this is when.
you know, this is only when I can no longer be at home safely or this is last case scenario, you know, this is when I need to move, but not even considering that maybe moving is not, you know, a necessary thing either, right? So I love the conversation that is coming out of this. You have five strategies in your collaborative aging framework. Talk to me about what those look like.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (14:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, okay. Well, the first is your health and how do you do your best to maintain it? And how do you find evidence based health information? How do you work with clinicians collaboratively to get the best from your health? And I help people see sort of what’s on the horizon with your health. And I’ll come back to that in a minute. But we know your health changes, right? You might be perfectly your baseline health like mine right now is good.
Melissa (14:50)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (14:55)
but it might change and as it changes, what are the things that you can anticipate and prepare for? So health, number one. Number two, housing. Housing is such a key decision and making timely choices around your housing and making informed choices around your housing is one of the most foundational pieces of my framework. And I’ll come back to sort of what’s in that mix, but
You know, it can be anything from modifying your existing home for accessibility before you need to or moving to a place that has one level living and an accessible front door, you know, before you need to or going into a residence, a seniors residence, maybe even or seniors based housing or non-market housing. There’s so many choices on housing.
We need more of them. We need a bigger supply of housing, but most people resist change on housing. And I understand why, because the every community I go into, most people say, I don’t have a lot of next stage housing options in my area. And I want to stay in my area. Understandably, familiar social network, all the reasons their health care is there. So housing choices, number two, number three.
your social circle, your social circle of support. Where is it and how can you keep building it? And this is where purposeful living, purposeful activities, arts, civic projects, community-based projects, learning, continuing to learn. We form relationships when we share experiences. So what are the experiences I want to have and how can I build friendships through that process?
And that forms an insulating and connecting kind of tissue around us ⁓ as we age. That’s number three. Number four is our caregivers. And how do we select, prepare, and ready our caregivers for the roles we may ask them to play? And that’s either unpaid or paid. And that goes back to sort of…
understanding what your family or friends might be willing to do or able to do and how far can you go with that and then what’s out in your community care wise that you might need. Is it respite supports? Is it home care? Is it you know assisted living type models in a building? You know the range of what supports are out there. You need to explore that but you ultimately want caregiving to be balanced and sustainable for everybody.
for you and for those you’re asking paid or unpaid to help. And then lastly, and not least, is money and resources. That fifth area is how do you resource all of this? And some of the previous, the four other strategies or action areas are resources too. Our health is a resource, our social relationships are resources, our housing is a resource, and sometimes it’s a…
financial resource because we have equity in housing, but not everybody does. So there’s those kinds of resources and then there’s money. And the money part is our own financial resources, what’s out there, what’s available by the government, government benefits, government income sources, government care, government funded care, tax rebates, there’s accessibility, home accessibility, tax credits.
Like, there’s different ways we can finance and resource our sort of our whole life and arrangements. And so, you know, some people are on very fixed incomes and that sort of sets out, you know, several pathways for how you arrange the right supports. Some people are in kind of the middle and have some pension and some other savings and may have a
home and some assets and others are you know more comfortable financially and so knowing where you are with your resources helps you sort of navigate your best journey accordingly and but you all no matter who you are we need to look at these five areas of our lives and recognize they’re interdependent.
Melissa (19:10)
Thank
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (19:20)
So if my health changes, that might mean I need a different caregiving team. Or if I move to a different city or town and I’ve changed my dwelling or my house or home, I’m also changing my health care access, my social circle and neighbors. And neighbors are a big part of our social circle and support system as we move through life.
Melissa (19:42)
Mm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (19:45)
You may be changing who’s on your caregiving team, right? So you start to see when you see these areas of your life and see them at kind of the top level and then through kind of layers, you also see how interconnected they are. And that’s when we can make really informed choices, right? We understand, if I change this, it’s going to affect that. And you want to be the readying and preparing.
Melissa (20:01)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (20:10)
allows you to consider these interrelationships. So that’s the five areas of planning and action.
Melissa (20:14)
Certainly.
Yeah, I wrote down a couple notes here because I just wanted to reiterate them because they really resonated with me. Purposeful living. I love that you talk about purposeful living because as we age, you know, I hear from so many people like mum seems to have lost her purpose. What does that look like? Like she’s in this care facility and we’re struggling. The joie de vie is missing again, right? And so
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (20:26)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (20:44)
I love your idea of purposeful living. I talk about dementia care, we talk about purposeful activities. So even before all of that happens, that purposeful living, I love that you speak to that.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (20:50)
Yeah.
Well,
and I don’t use the word retirement, but a lot of people who are readying to retire from the job they had, you know, there’s a lot more talk now about repurposing ourselves, which is purposing, the word purpose, right? And a lot of times our work has offered us social connection and friendships. It’s offered us purpose. It’s offered us
Melissa (21:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (21:23)
intellectual or physical stimulation, either we’re working with our bodies and we’re doing something physical or we’re doing something with our minds. And when that’s stopped, you really do need to, with intention, think about, well, how can I derive satisfaction, purpose, learn, continue to learn, grow? That curiosity is key, right? We have to remain curious and there is some intention. have to
Melissa (21:26)
Okay.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (21:51)
seek it out a bit and some people are reluctant to do that but there is so much on offer and then I think also when people no longer are cooking for themselves, preparing like the managing your home is purposeful too right managing your daily life and so yeah it’s a really important facet of
Melissa (22:09)
Mmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (22:17)
any time of life. You think of young people too. They derive purpose from school, friends, sports activities, things they’re learning, right?
Melissa (22:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and always in search of that purpose too, like what’s the point of it all, right? If we have nothing, no goals that we’ve set forth, no community surrounding us that we have built, those trusted relationships and nothing that’s sustainable, it really looks very daunting. Yeah.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (22:30)
Okay. One more.
Yeah, and I mean, we have
loneliness as a problem in Canada and in North America, in the world now. I technology has played a role here too. People aren’t connecting as easily with other people. And we’ve gotten a bit isolated and lonelier. And so kind of have to work against that too, right? That’s all through the life.
Melissa (23:04)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (23:06)
span. So and I know with later life loss is a big part of ⁓ change and transition, loss of a spouse, loss of a family member, loss of a friend who’s known you for many years. There is some grief and bereavement and kind of repositioning yourself in view of those losses.
Melissa (23:11)
Yes.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (23:29)
But there’s also the continuing to build new relationships too, right? So. ⁓
Melissa (23:34)
Yeah. Yeah, that
other just community. That’s the other note that I wrote for myself is community and how dynamic just as you just touched on community surrounded by loss and what you have built into that, you know, community to allow us to still have a community despite loss, right? Where that initial
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (23:40)
you
Yes, exactly.
Melissa (23:57)
⁓ very close community may change and is very dynamic, but if you’ve built in a network outside of that, ⁓ your community is constantly changing and very dynamic, but still can be very supportive.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (24:04)
Yes.
That’s it, Melissa. And it’s almost like you’re building in a resiliency to yourself when you recognize you have this community and you are intentionally sort of maintaining it and contributing to it. And that can be at the neighborhood level or can be faith based. can be all sorts of forms, right? Family and intergenerationally with grandkids. Like there’s so many ways we foster community.
Melissa (24:14)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (24:37)
But when we have some, I want to say padding, if you will, you know, it helps us be resilient to some of the losses or changes. my grandparents model was exactly that. I learned that from them and the way they lived their later life. They really cultivated community. was neighbors. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say it’s neighbors, friends, grandchildren.
Melissa (24:58)
Yeah, I think of my community. Sorry. Go ahead.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (25:05)
even their faith-based group in the neighborhood, multiple layers of community.
Melissa (25:11)
Yeah, yeah, I was just going to say I think of my community and the different layers, you know, of course, you have your organic family and what that looks like. But then, yeah, I mean, you build out maybe naturally without intention. But as we age, we almost have to do it intentionally to be sure that that padding is in place, right. And that community may involve health care providers, we know seniors see their physicians, we see their nurse practitioners, their nurses on a regular basis.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (25:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa (25:41)
and asking them for support in building that community too. So yeah, I think traditional ideas of community are expanding, right, as our lives change.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (25:45)
Definitely.
I agree. Yeah,
I agree. And I think that’s the mindset shift or mental model shift that I’m talking about where it, you know, options open and this guide, it’s a user friendly sort of guide. But it’s, it’s got a philosophy of openness, right, which is you’ve got to be open to the idea of aging. And that involves if you want that to be a good experience, you
Melissa (25:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (26:18)
to be open to the idea of community and what that looks like and how you cultivate it. Open to the idea of creating sort of circles of support for yourself and offering others support, that reciprocity. It’s a philosophy of proactivity and openness as opposed to resistive and fear and narrowing of our choices.
Melissa (26:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, and denial. I mean, that’s a very real thing, right? The denial that this will not happen to me. I’m not going to age. I am not going to have an end of life. ⁓ Unfortunately, denial does not become fruitful. Yes, it’s so true.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (26:45)
in Denmark.
Yeah.
No, and yet we’re surrounded by denial, right? We have age denying,
age defying creams and surgeries and, you know, mean, society’s quite ageist. And there’s a lot of corporate interest in in kind of all this age denying culture. And yet, at a practical and human level, life
Melissa (27:10)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (27:21)
if we accept it’s got a beginning and an end and part of that if we’re fortunate enough will be aging and the changes and we will our physical life will end when you’re that ⁓ accepting of that that those principles or those realities if you will you kind of have a more I want to say judicious
or you’re able to kind of gauge some of this sales pitch on it’s a big, the wellness marketplace is actually bigger than the pharmaceuticals now because it’s big business. And some of that is wellness and healthy, actually evidence-based solutions. And others of it is just complete hocus pocus and sale, you know. And so how do you gauge what
Melissa (28:10)
You
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (28:13)
what is a reliable health strategy for really staying as healthy as possible and differentiating that from kind of the age denying kinds of strategies. And I’m not saying someone might not want to do some things with their skin or their face. It’s not that, it’s just that we have to recognize what’s perpetuating what, right? And so.
Melissa (28:19)
Certainly.
All right, buddy.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (28:37)
Yeah, there was a great book written years ago by a woman. And now I forget the author’s name, but it’s called Never Say Die. I think it was Susan Jacoby is her last name. And it was really about, like, eyes wide open on how much is at stake in terms of businesses that rely on that age denying culture.
Melissa (28:58)
Mm
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the longer people are in denial, the better the outcome is for the today or the crisis for the business, right? Not necessarily for the person. Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say is the most common planning gap to people that come in and see your workshops or see your CU? I mean, whether it’s a big gathering or just one to one.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (29:08)
yeah
Mm-hmm.
The two areas that really, that I hear the most questions for and where I’m asked to do more customized workshops are on housing and housing options and caregiving readiness and planning. the housing, people find it really hard to make, to find the options in their neighborhood or their town.
that they struggle the gap of next stage housing if they’re moving like even in rural parts of Ontario, what I call cottage country or areas where people have had a residence and it’s on a lake and they love it and it’s winterized and they live there and so on. But then they know when they can’t drive that like they’re gonna have to move to town. Well, where do they move into town?
what like who are the developers building this kind of housing. There’s a real shortage of what I call next stage housing that has universal accessibility, it has it’s got some walkability amenities nearby, health care nearby, but it isn’t it’s lifespan housing. You could live in it if you’re young, you could live in it if you’re old. There’s a real shortage of that. that’s so people navigating
Melissa (30:35)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (30:42)
housing, some of them are co creating solutions. And I talk a lot about those in the guide, their shared living, co housing, renting out a room to generate some money if they have an extra space, but even just creating the kind of housing that you can move to and stay in and add carry in is one big gap. And the on the caregiving side, people
or struggle with, well, if I don’t have a lot of family and or friends, how can I set myself up for having caregivers nearby? And this is where some of the solutions like naturally occurring retirement communities where if you’re living in a building and there’s a critical mass of older adults.
Melissa (31:26)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (31:31)
Can you start thinking about co-organizing some supports, meals, a few meals a week, exercise programs, home care company coming in and visiting? What does that look like? So in the shortages of caregiving, what are some resourceful models to address your needs now or as they may change?
So people are very interested in that and there’s more talk and more interest in really casting an informed advance care plan. Like what would I wish for in this circumstance? What would I wish for in that health circumstance? What would I wish for in another? So and even housing, what would I wish for? Where would I want to move to or not to?
Melissa (32:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (32:20)
So there’s
more interest in that kind of level of planning, which is, I think, a good sign.
Melissa (32:25)
Yeah, absolutely. And how early are people having these conversations with you? Or what do you recommend is that timeline?
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (32:30)
⁓
well, I recommend if you, this is where it’s never one and done, it’s a start. I recommend starting late fifties, early sixties, just familiarize yourself with the kind of the horizon and the terrain, these five areas planning, being more mindful when you in your own life of what are your neighborhood assets? What are your, you know,
Melissa (32:38)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (32:57)
your financial assets, you’re sort of getting a financial plan started that really is meaningful and incorporates the cost of care in your community because government resources are very limited. Once people really get that in there, when they are aware of that, it helps them sort of set aside the right resources. So yeah, I say, you know, your 50s or 60s and
Melissa (33:07)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (33:24)
That’s where a lot of financial planners and financial advisors aren’t attuned yet to say the limits of the government funded care in the community to help their clients realistically plan. So we have work to do there too. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ earlier better, I team to be reaching people in their 60s and early 70s and that’s because retiree groups.
Melissa (33:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (33:50)
are hiring me, like pension groups, retired teachers of BC, Manitoba, retired municipal employees groups, health care retirees, and pro-bus clubs. Those are groups of people who already have stepped into retirement, so that’s who I’m reaching out in the last few years anyway, most.
Melissa (33:52)
Mm.
I think it’s great to implement financial planning and healthcare planning all kind of at the same time. You know, we talk about estate planning. We talk about what are my dying days going to be like. We don’t talk about the journey to those days ⁓ and what that means. And again, one of your key points that sustainability, you know, in order for those choices to be sustainable, you have to plan for them.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (34:19)
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Melissa (34:40)
And that involves finances as well.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (34:40)
Well, and
I was going to say that OhanaCare, your website has really good information about say the option of live-in care. What that looks like, how it can be arranged, shift or not shift, costs per month that you could count on. That’s a tool for helping people understand and make a plan.
Melissa (34:51)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (35:04)
Okay, if I’m going to, if my husband and I are going to share care at home and we want to live in person, what would that cost us? A lot of home care companies don’t, and even retirement homes, don’t publish their costs. And part of that is they want to wait and see kind of what the person’s circumstances are. But I really encourage in the Options Open Guide, I say, how do you choose a home care company?
Melissa (35:12)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (35:31)
when you look for accreditation, which your organization is accredited, you look for fee transparency, you look for these attributes in a company, because that’s kind of the caliber of company you want to work with. ⁓ yeah, once you get your head around kind of some of these costs and options, then you can say you can cast your wishes a bit more clearly too.
Melissa (35:39)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, we fully believe in transparency. And also, so many of my conversations are maybe not Ohana care, but figuring out what resources are available. there’s, we’re almost afraid to talk about what those resources are and to be transparent over what funded versus private looks like or what a live-in caregiver could offer you versus.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (36:10)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (36:23)
you know, a stranger coming in in task oriented care models and what all of that looks like. So yeah, I mean, thank you, because that’s really what we love doing. And yeah, it’s all about the conversation and the education. Education is so important because I am not one to say what your sustainable resources financially look like, what that plan looks like, or otherwise.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (36:23)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (36:49)
happy to help in crisis, but let’s think long-term and what that plan really looks like.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (36:54)
Well, and episodic, I might need care in my home after a hospital stay, then I’m on my feet again, but then I might need it again as my needs change. that’s that fluctuation is sort of like, you know, you get on a plane and they say, well, it’s going to be a little turbulent. Well, you know, this is what we have to expect with aging. It’s going to be a little bit fluctuating. And so how do we build in that fluctuation capability?
Melissa (36:57)
Certainly.
Yes.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (37:19)
for ourselves and as you say Melissa, home care and what your company is offering is one piece of a puzzle. know, it’s not the whole community offering. are, you know, the Alzheimer’s societies have respite programs, other community-based charities have some services, your housing has to be set up properly, you know, there’s some supplies and equipment with that but also just even the design.
Melissa (37:26)
Certainly.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (37:46)
The front entrance has to be accessible. There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle. And when you’re aging in the community, you are putting together those pieces of a puzzle like you do a trip. It’s not all inclusive unless you move into a setting where all of this is provided. So we’re kind of curating all of that. And your company can help people find other resources too.
Melissa (38:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. I love your analogy of a trip. I’m going to steal it because I love it. Yeah, certainly. I really like it because I think, you know, it’s not something we would go blind into. We plan trips well in advance. We make sure that we’ve done our due diligence financially, paperwork and otherwise. So I think we owe it to ourselves to put that kind of work into the journey that is aging. So I
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (38:15)
No, I’m kidding.
Mmm.
Melissa (38:38)
Love it, love it.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (38:40)
Good. Yeah, most people tell me, wow, that’s very relatable. Like I can now kind of picture what I should be thinking about or doing. So I’m glad you like it too. That’s good. Yeah.
Melissa (38:45)
Yeah, totally.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
well, and I myself grew up in a very legal environment. My mother’s a lawyer. so estate planning was certainly something that we spoke about from a very young age. And, you know, it’s all about that planning process. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s silly not to talk about what the next steps of life look like, and can be very exciting. I mean,
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (39:02)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (39:19)
Some people I hear from talk about retirement and I’m congratulating them and they’re like, yeah, but now what? I’m envious. And they’re looking at it as an unfortunate change of events where they are now, they’ve lost that purpose and they’ve lost that plan and that intention. so, redeveloping, repurposing, as you say, is so important.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (39:26)
I’m good. I’m coming. Yeah.
Yeah, it’s a big change and
some people are very fearful of it. Some people are very welcoming of it. Again, we vary depending on how much we relied on our work, but work is a way we connect with other people and stimulate ourselves. But I was going to say on the estate planning, one of the things I’ve come across is that the people I talk to, young and old, are starting to recognize the need for a will, at minimum.
Melissa (39:46)
Yeah.
Certainly big part of community.
Yes.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (40:07)
Even I was in a nonprofit cooperative housing building the other day talking to a group of tenants and there many of them are on limited, very limited incomes. They have some rent supplements. They run this building together. It’s a cooperative, like that’s a standard model now in Canada, across Canada, cooperative housing non-market. But they were saying that some of their tenants didn’t have a will and
Melissa (40:29)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (40:35)
Although they had the misconception that they shouldn’t have a will, even a simple one-page will, because they don’t have assets. The truth is the cooperative housing unit couldn’t rent out the unit that the person had passed away in. They couldn’t take rent in. Like the bank was frozen. Like there were so many things that were not prepared for.
Melissa (40:41)
Mm-hmm.
Good.
you
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (41:00)
because just that one missing piece of a will and executive, right? So yeah, it
Melissa (41:03)
Mm hmm. Yeah. yeah,
it’s so important. Many times I’ve seen guardianship and all of that related to just the process and the expenditure that comes after the fact that planning really saves everyone a lot of hassle. I don’t want to say grief, because that comes along with it, but certainly the hassle for sure. Yeah. Of course, yeah. Yeah.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (41:21)
Yeah.
I’m consuming hassle and some financial loss in some cases. now. And then on the
flip side, I was going to say that whole preparing for who’s making decisions on my behalf if I can’t, right? Your attorney or trustee proxy, whichever word you use, that’s such a key piece to avoid fraud, selecting the right people for those roles. And yeah.
Melissa (41:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Certainly. Yeah.
So we often have family members that are calling and saying, you know, mom or dad needs support, but they are not willing to be a part of this. They are very resistant to having home care or having any support whatsoever. I’m sure you come across this with many families as well. How do you broach that? How do you introduce the idea? What’s your
key to getting some less resistance, let’s say.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (42:16)
people to kind of, well,
just to clarify your question, are you saying the family members resist the idea of paying for care in the home or they resist the, or the individuals who are needing the help are resisting?
Melissa (42:30)
Yeah,
the individuals needing the help are resistant, certainly.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (42:33)
Yeah, yeah.
Well, honestly, if I have to coin the reason I started on this path of doing this proactive, educative work is exactly that. ⁓ found in my home care days, is decades ago, or even in the navigational design projects I led that included a whole like 25 organizations publicly funded.
Melissa (42:46)
That’s good.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (43:00)
getting people to the right door at the right time, the right support, getting, you know, a lot of people would say, oh, it’s so confusing. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know who to, who can help me with what. And I agreed with that. It is confusing and terminology. But when we got someone in this one project called Doorways to Care to the right door, the right agency, the right support service, the right everything, they refused to help. 20 to 22%.
Melissa (43:14)
Mmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (43:26)
refuse to help. And that made me realize, wait a minute, we have a mind shift change to make, which is we will, we got to flip that on its ear and say, we’re going to need help. I am going to need help. It’s a question of when I’m going to accept it, how I’m going to accept it, how I’m going to resource it, right? So ⁓
Melissa (43:42)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (43:51)
In an individual case or in certain family situations, I do try to understand what is at the sort of core of a person’s resistance, and often it’s fear, and sometimes it’s money. And sometimes it’s like, I don’t want to spend money on this. I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to take away from the money I might leave for my kids. Like, there’s so many different factors of why people might resist the help, but most of all,
Melissa (44:03)
Yes.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (44:18)
feels to me or what I’ve seen most frequently is that sense of loss of control over their home and their care and their life, right? They don’t realize that actually this is a way of actually maintaining control if it’s organized the right way and well and if they accept it in a more easily and smooth way.
Melissa (44:24)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (44:41)
But what I have found is the publicly funded care sometimes is very, it’s hard to schedule, people don’t always, it’s very visit-based. that adds to the resistance because it doesn’t feel like it fits with people’s lives. It’s sort of like dictating when they’ll get care and.
and they don’t know who the person will be that’s going to provide the care. There’s some things that in, certainly in Ontario, where our visit-based model has some real cons, right? So if the resistance is related to that, I try to work that through with people and help them understand they might have the choice of supplementing the care of the public system to have a bit more control over who’s coming and when and that kind of thing. So
Melissa (45:30)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (45:31)
You have
to understand what’s the base of the resistance, but that’s how I try to sort of help people navigate in the kind of short term. Overall, this work I’m doing is to try to start earlier, the planning and the acceptance that then you don’t find yourself later resisting when the time comes, right?
Melissa (45:52)
Mm-hmm.
As you’ve maintained that control throughout, right? ⁓ Yeah, I think control is a huge part of it. In aging, you know, there’s that idea that you will lose capacity, you will lose friends, you will lose family, and now we’re looking at losing control over day-to-day decision-making, our housing, our finances, our everything else, right? So to just grab hold and continue to have that control of your independence, I think is so
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (45:56)
Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (46:20)
⁓ important and that really only happens with that plan in place. It’s very hard to have control over a situation in crisis. ⁓
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (46:30)
Yeah,
and that I try to help people see there’s going to be transitions. So you’re going to feel the fluctuations. There are periods where you do feel out of control. if you get it, you you either have a health condition, baseline good health, you might have one chronic condition or you might get you might get diagnosed with a serious illness. Well, you’re not going to be able to control all that all of that. Right. But what can you
Melissa (46:36)
certainly.
⁓
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (46:56)
exercise influence and control over within that. Well, you can familiarize yourself with the serious illness, the type of journey it might be, the stages of it, and how you can navigate those stages most effectively, right? control is an important word. I say choice, it’s life. We don’t have control over everything in our life, but we can certainly influence a lot of things by our pro-life.
Melissa (46:56)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
No.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (47:23)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa (47:24)
Influence, I like that very much.
One thing I just want to touch on before we wrap up is zooming out and looking at things from a systemic level. So I didn’t know this actual tangible number, but Canada currently spends approximately $6 on institutional care for every $1 on community-based care. Now, you know,
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (47:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Melissa (47:50)
For me, I love the idea of offering care in homes. I love the idea of wherever that home may be, let’s make a home, let’s support that. I love, I’m angry about this, but also I love seeing these really tangible numbers and having, and the weight that that may have with people. Can you just quickly touch on that?
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (48:10)
Yeah, Aging Well, a report issued out of Queen’s University in I 2021, coined that stat. And it really is compelling in that it shows that we’ve relied on institutional models, whether that be long-term care homes, nursing homes, whatever the term you use, hospital care, you know, institutional segregated models of care for elders.
Melissa (48:18)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (48:37)
And sometimes that’s been geography, like, you know, we’re spread out, you know, if you need to kind of congregate care in a place, it makes sense to congregate it. But we have really over relied on institutional models and home care and community care when it comes to government funding has been kind of an add on to our universal health system. It’s not
really of our universal health systems. The provinces pay for it mainly. And it’s kind of been the second cousin of the bigger hospital care and institutional care. And if we want to flip that script, we have to really work on our governments. But we also need the right kind of housing in which home and community care could then be increased in its funding, right? So we…
it’s taking apart the congregate institutional model, breaking it into different pieces, component pieces, and investing in that. And that’s not where our government policies have gone, federally, provincially, municipally. We have a lot of work to do to undo that, or we have a lot of building up to do of the community. And some of that can be tax incentives, tax credits.
Melissa (49:55)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (49:55)
What
if people are given a tax credit or they don’t aren’t taxed when they remove money from their retirement savings to purchase home care, for example, right? There’s just there’s different ways we can solve the challenges of this sort of uneven investment in unity and home. But it’s something again that has to be put on the table, talked about.
Melissa (50:07)
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (50:22)
explored. Let’s explore some ideas, creative ideas for how to do that and governments need to be willing to do that at all levels.
Melissa (50:31)
Yeah, for sure. I know in Alberta that’s a hot topic right now for sure. Having, you know, community care as a proactive, you know, idea versus a reactive idea. So I think it’s great that you are a part of that advocacy and are speaking loud and heard about how we need to change that, certainly. So just in closing, Sue.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (50:40)
I hope.
Melissa (50:54)
Where can we find your book? Options open.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (50:57)
If you go to my website at collaborativeaging.com, there’s a page called Guidebook that has the link to purchase the book. It is on Apple. It is in as well. But the guide is in paperback and in ⁓ PDF form. Sometimes the sponsors of my workshops also will like Baycrest Health in Toronto has run my workshop series. And with that, for free with
they offered the guidebook as part of coming to the workshop series, which is a really great way to sort of absorb the material and learn together with others. So, but my website, collaborativeaging.com is where you can purchase the main place to purchase the book.
Melissa (51:42)
Wonderful. And of course you’re on LinkedIn, so we’re all going to connect with you on LinkedIn and learn all that you have to offer on there as well.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (51:46)
Yes.
Yeah and I’m on Instagram under options open guide if you want to follow kind of where we are and who we’re talking to and what we’re advocating on that’s another way to find us.
Melissa (51:53)
Okay.
Certainly. Well, that’s great. Thank you so much, Sue. I hope we can drag you out to Alberta when our weather is nicer here. Yeah, I think I would love to have you as a guest again. I think we have lots more to chat about and dig a little deeper into. So thank you so much for this first meeting. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with all of us.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (52:07)
⁓ yeah, I’d love that.
Melissa (52:23)
just for opening the conversation about what planning and what aging in place looks like. So thank you again, Sue. I really appreciate your time. And yeah, go to collaborativeaging.com, everybody. Thanks so much, Sue. Take care. Bye-bye.
Sue Lantz, Collaborative Aging (52:36)
Thank you. Bye Melissa.
