My Recent Appearance on Aging in Place is a Team Sport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQK-4bhJirU

I recently had the opportunity to join Chris Moore of Aging in Place Is a Team Sport for a conversation about aging, independence, adaptive design, caregiving, and the reality that ability is not binary. It’s a curve.

We covered a lot of ground, but the heart of the conversation was simple: most people do not think about adaptation until it becomes personal. That might happen through age, injury, caregiving, fatigue, or a sudden change in health. But when it does, the problem is often not the person. The problem is the mismatch between the person, the task, and the environment.

That is one of the core ideas behind the Ability Curve — the belief that capability changes over time, across tasks, and under different conditions, and that design should reflect that reality rather than force people into an outdated able/disabled binary.

We also talked about the kitchen, because it is one of the clearest examples of this disconnect. Traditional knives were designed for a different era and a different set of priorities. They made sense when a single tool needed to hunt, defend, and prepare food. But in a modern kitchen, the job is cutting. That raises a different question: what if the best cutting tool would not look like a traditional knife at all?

That question led to the creation of the NULU. Its circular geometry was designed to improve force transfer, control, and stability, especially for people with upper extremity issues, seated users, and others whose needs are ignored by conventional tools. What we have continued to find, though, is that adaptive design often does not just help a smaller group. It frequently works better for more people. That is the broader promise of adaptive products and universal design.

Another major thread in the discussion was caregiving and aging in place. Too often, families are forced into reactive decisions because they have not been encouraged to think ahead. But aging in place is not just an emotional issue. It is also an economic issue, a design issue, and a family systems issue. The more we can create homes, tools, and routines that preserve independence, the more dignity, autonomy, and resilience we preserve for everyone involved.

This conversation reinforced something I believe deeply: adaptive design should not be treated as niche. It should be treated as smart design. It should be part of how we think about homes, products, work, aging, and everyday life.

Because in the end, aging in place really is a team sport. And that team should include better tools, better design, better conversations, and a better understanding of what human ability actually looks like over a lifetime.

Thanks again to Chris Moore for a thoughtful conversation.