Home Modification
Aging-in-Place Remodeling Checklist
The reference from the National Association of Homebuilders lists features you may want to consider for your next new construction or renovation project. Because it’s not comprehensive, it’s best to also consult with a Certified Aging-In-Place Specialist.
Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist
National Association of Home Builders’ CAPS program teaches contractors the technical, business management, and customer service skills of residential remodeling for aging-in-place.
AdaptMy.com
An online store devoted to accessibility to help you find products for the home, with resources on universal design, home assessments, ADA and aging in place.
Angie’s List
Find, rate and compare contractors, home service companies, and healthcare facilities & practitioners. Because you can easily tell thousands of other members about your experiences with a company, that’s great news for the companies that do good work – and not so great news for the companies that don’t – so members often get better service.
Eliminating Barriers Daily
This is a daily newsletter by Marcela Abadi Rhoads with information about accessibility, the disabled community, and eliminating barriers.
Prevent FALLS
From Minor to Major, here’s The Complete Guide to Home Modifications to Prevent Seniors From Falling.
HomeAdvisor.com
HomeAdvisor is an online resource to help you find trusted home improvement pros.
HomeMods.org
This university-based and non-profit effort promotes aging in place and independent living for persons of all ages and abilities and serves as a clearinghouse of information on home modifications.
Houzz.com
When looking for home modification ideas, search through the photos & portfolios of leading Interior Design professionals for key words such as Kitchen, Bath, Stair Ramp, Stair Lift, Home Elevator, Universal Design, and Aging-in-Place.
The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology and Devices
This book has been universally praised since it cuts through the clutter surrounding assistive devices with a simple conversational style. It’s organized according to disability and easily explains the best type of device for a multiple situations, home, work, on the road, or at school.
Kitchen & Bath Design News
This Electronic Magazine is a business, design and product resource for the interior design industry, kitchen and bath trade. You can browse through each issue and read the articles with No Subscription Needed.
How To MODIFY Your Home For Someone With Physical Disabilities
Besides listing basic design considerations, this article discusses available grants and government assistance for home remodeling.
Home Elevators: What You Should Know
Home elevators are a surprisingly old solution to limited mobility, providing a more attractive and permanent alternative to stair lifts. This guide can help you decide if an elevator is a smart investment for your situation and reviews the best elevators on the market.
Residential Design for Aging in Place
This book, available in bookstores or on Amazon.com, is about designing homes for aging people. It’s especially helpful for interior designers, architects, and home builders who are increasingly asked by clients to design homes that allow for adaptation over time so they can age-in-place. It includes case study examples of good design solutions from two authors who are highly respected fellows of the ASID.
Guide to Revitalizing Your Home: Beautiful Living for the Second Half of Life
This book, available in bookstores or on Amazon.com, shows that remodeling for accessibility can be quite attractive and increase a home’s value. (Watch a free AARP webinar that is based on the book.)
Selling a Home with Modifications for Older Adults
What are the typical home modifications, and how do they affect resale value? (Includes links to other good resources.)
Smart Home Accommodations for Seniors and Individuals with Special Needs
This guide was designed to provide a thorough understanding of the latest smart home technology, and suggestions for specific software and devices that can be incorporated into a home to accommodate each of seven of the most common types of disabilities: hearing difficulty, vision difficulty, speech/language difficulty, cognitive difficulty or memory loss, ambulatory difficult, arthritis, and self-care/independent living difficulty.
Trending Accessibility
This commercial website provides universal design and accessibility products to consumers, contractors, and architects, primarily focused on bathroom projects.
Universal Design Living Laboratory
After a freak accident left her paralyzed, Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph.D. found a new mission in life. The new home she’s building as her own residence is being opened as a National Demonstration Home for builders to feature Universal Design principles. We wrote about her project here in Part 1 of what will be a series of articles.
VA Specially Adapted Housing program
Grant money is available to provide a barrier-free living environment that affords veterans or service members a level of independent living they may not normally enjoy. This webpage provides information and supports the Homes for Heroes program (watch 4:30 min YouTube video.
Note that many of the websites listed include their own resource lists, so be sure to look there too. And of course you can do an online search with a search engine.
Hi Wayne,
I am fascinated with your work and background. I’ve spent half of my twenty year career in home health care, and the other half as a contractor. With personal interests in technology’s solution to the growing demand for AIP, I’ll be certain to learn all I can from your work to help me in my business plans to serve the Monterey, CA market.
Two questions:
1) Are you aware of any credible platforms or models for entrepreneurs like me who want to serve my local AIP community with home assessments, solutions, value and technology? Such as licensing, franchising, or similar?
2) I am certified as an ATP, Assistive Technology Professional, resna.org and thought maybe you’d want to add that to your certification page which is where I landed to send this email.
I sent you a LinkedIn request. Look forward to connecting soon.
Scott Julian
831-601-9256
Scott, Thanks for finding Modern Health Talk and your kind words. I hope you find this resource helpful. I added this description of Assistive Technology Professionals:
Doing home assessments presents a problem for entrepreneurs, relating to the ability to scale. I use a tool from Traitwise to create an Assessment Survey and can highly recommend it as a survey tool (quick, fun & engaging). A survey is OK initially, for you and your client to see if there’s a good fit for your skills, but I’ve had little success with it since what’s really needed is a personal in-home survey. Anyway, I invite you to experiment with my survey. Developing the survey questions and structure is not too difficult but takes time. I don’t know if anything like that has been done before or is available but could see that itself as a business opportunity.