Free program will help Riverdale's low-income older adults stay independent at home

This fall, the Hebrew Home at Riverdale by RiverSpring Living, an older adult care and living facility at 5901 Palisade Ave., will be offering a free, home-based program that aims to improve living conditions and maintain autonomy for low-income clients.

Under CAPABLE, which stands for Community Aging in Place – Advancing Better Living for Elders, clients receive personalized support from a registered nurse, occupational therapist and handyperson for four to five months. With the help of this team, the client sets functional goals — such as bathing independently, preparing meals or managing medications — and follows an action plan.

Aging in place refers to an older adult living independently in their home as they get older, as opposed to an assisted living facility or nursing home.

The program is expected to reach 200 clients over the course of three years, said RiverSpring Senior Vice President of Quality and Corporate Compliance David Siegelman. A $917,841 grant from the state’s department of health will finance CAPABLE, according to RiverSpring.

CAPABLE is a program that was created in 2009 by the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Maryland, according to the school, after dean Sarah Szanton observed during house calls that clients’ home environments could be as disabling as their medical conditions. The program has since expanded to nearly 40 care centers across the U.S, according to the CAPABLE National Center.

Research by the nursing school found that when clients’ abilities at home are improved, it reduces hospitalization and nursing home stays. It also enhances motivation, and helps lessen health disparities due to the focus on low-income clients, the school said.

RiverSpring nurses and occupational therapists will be a part of the program’s implementation, and handypersons will be hired through a separate company, Siegelman said. Part of the grant money is used to pay employees.

More than 13,000 older adults live in greater Riverdale, according to the New York Academy of Medicine, making up 29 percent of the neighborhood’s population, the highest share in any Bronx neighborhood.

Siegelman, who started out as a physical therapist, said CAPABLE captures the goal of therapy — achieving what the client wants, not what the clinician wants. This could range from being able to leave the house to attend a place of worship, baking with grandchildren or picking up a new hobby such as the piano, Siegelman said.

Unique adjustments that improve living conditions may include installing a new light fixture above the piano so a client can see better, or enlarging the text of a recipe so a client can more easily bake.

“When you talk aging in place, you talk being able to do what you want to do in the environment you want to be in,” Siegelman said. “But you want to do it gracefully. You want to be able to do it under your own terms.”

The program will not replace traditional, paid home care, Siegelman said, and CAPABLE has specific criteria clients need to meet to be eligible. These include being a Medicaid recipient or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line — earning $23,940 annually, according to the Federal Courts of the United States — having difficulty with daily living activities and being older than 60, Siegelman said.

Daily living activities include but are not limited to dressing, bathing, meal preparation and managing a checkbook.

In order to help get the word out and refer clients, RiverSpring said it reached out to Bronx Community Board 8’s Aging Committee, the Riverdale Y and City Council member Susan Zhuang, who is chair of the council’s committee on aging, as well as other community partners.

The catchment area for the program spans the Bronx, Lower Westchester and Manhattan, Siegelman said, but RiverSpring believes the vast majority of clients will be found in the Riverdale area.

Interested New Yorkers will submit an intake form. From there, RiverSpring will follow up with prospective clients based on the highest need and bandwidth of staff in a given neighborhood.