Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift

With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, the need for senior living is growing at a steep rate, and the aging services field has been hard at work preparing for these new customers. Current practices aim to bring the kind of comfort and amenities enjoyed at hotels and resorts to the settings we create for older adults to live in. But what if these efforts are misdirected?

Interweaving research on aging, ideas from influential thinkers in the aging services field, and the author’s own experiences managing and operating senior living communities, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift challenges readers to question long-accepted practices, examine their own biases, and work toward creating vibrant cultures of possibility and growth for elders.

Shining a light on her own professional field, Jill Vitale-Aussem exposes the errors of current thinking and demonstrates how a shift in perspective can effect real cultural transformation. Her book delves into society’s inherent biases about growing older—where ageism, paternalism, and ableism abound—and provokes readers to examine how a youth-obsessed culture unconsciously impacts even the most well-meaning senior living policies, practices, and organizations. Deconstructing the popular hospitality model, for example, Vitale-Aussem explains how it can actually undermine feelings of purpose and independence. In its place, she proposes better ways to create opportunities for older people to exercise choice, autonomy, and self-efficacy.

Filled with empowering stories of elders who find purpose and belonging within their senior residences, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living builds on AARP’s disrupt aging work and demonstrates that to truly transform senior living, we must dig deeper and create communities that promote the potential and value of the people who live and work in these settings.

Jill Vitale-Aussem, LNHA, MMH, is a veteran of the senior living field with over two decades of experience leading senior living communities in the for-profit and not-for profit sectors. Since 2018, she has served as President and CEO of The Eden Alternative, a global non-profit dedicated to creating quality of life for elders and their care partners, wherever they may live.

Jill earned her Master of Management in Hospitality degree from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree from Alfred University. She is a licensed nursing home administrator, a certified assisted living administrator, a LeadingAge Academy Fellow, an Eden Alternative Guide, and a Certified Eden Alternative Educator.

Jill is passionate about creating community cultures of innovation, possibilities, inclusivity, growth, and empowerment, and writes and speaks nationally on topics of culture, leadership, and ageism.