'CCRCs without walls' encourage aging in place, life care and wellness by Marilynn Larkin, Ma

A trend by any other name is still a trend—and that’s the case for “CCRCs without walls,” also known as “life care at home,” “retirement community without walls” and “continuing care at home.” At the heart of the concept is “one-stop shopping” for a lifetime of care, according to Sarah Lentz Spellman, LNHA, director of ThirdAge, a division of the consulting firm CliftonLarsonAllen, LLP, in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Spellman helped start one of the first CCRCs without walls—Cadbury at Home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey—in 1998. Hired to serve as executive director, she developed “all the policies, procedures—everything it took to get the program up and running,” Spellman says. She now advises other organizations interested in setting up a similar model.