A local conversation that connects CBD and hemp products with everyday questions about aging.
CBD and hemp enter the aging conversation through a practical local interview with Jerry Norton, co-owner and founder of Mind and Body CBD Wellness.

Plainspoken help for aging in the Mid-Valley.
Aging in the Willamette Valley brings a community-radio calm to aging, care, health, and benefits questions. Presley Reeder and John Hughes guide conversations with local guests who explain services, medical updates, and family decisions in plain language.
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Aging in the Willamette Valley is a local public-radio style guide to the choices, services, and worries that come with growing older in the Mid-Valley. It has a steady pace. Presley Reeder and John Hughes frame each episode around practical questions, then bring in guests who can explain the subject from the ground level. The result is less like a news panel and more like a patient conversation at a community resource table. Caregiving gets serious attention. Julie Mendez describes how family caregivers can arrive with different pressures, from full-time work to grandchildren to the physical and cognitive needs of a parent or loved one. The show gives those details space. Dementia care is another recurring thread, especially when John Hughes steps into the guest chair to talk through Alzheimer’s, cognitive health, medications, and the cautious hope around newer treatment approaches. Medicare episodes move through plan changes and the familiar confusion of Part A, Part B, Part D, supplemental plans, and advantage plans. Wellness topics also appear, including Jerry Norton explaining hemp production, CBD formats, and why terms like bioavailability matter. The show’s strength is translation. It takes subjects that can sound medical, bureaucratic, or intimidating and turns them into slower, everyday explanations. That does not make it glossy. It makes it useful. The tone stays warm even when the material is heavy, and the local focus keeps the advice close to actual services and organizations. Aging here is not treated as one problem. It is a set of family roles, health changes, benefits decisions, and local resources that people often need help sorting through. For listeners caring for someone, planning ahead, or trying to understand what support exists nearby, the show offers a calm place to start.
Made for: Older adults, family caregivers, and local families in the Willamette Valley who need clear explanations of care, benefits, dementia, wellness, and senior services.
What sets it apart: The show pairs a community-radio interview style with very local service knowledge, making complex aging topics feel concrete instead of abstract.
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Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Clear local conversations connect aging, dementia care, family caregiving, and treatment questions to the services and decisions shaping everyday life.
Aging in the Willamette Valley turns the practical questions of growing older into conversations with people who can answer them. Presley Reeder and John Hughes keep the focus close to home, moving between local guest interviews and episodes in which Hughes takes the expert…
This is the show that turns caregiving panic into a phone number, a program, and a next question.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A local conversation that connects CBD and hemp products with everyday questions about aging.
CBD and hemp enter the aging conversation through a practical local interview with Jerry Norton, co-owner and founder of Mind and Body CBD Wellness.
A clear, practical guide to family caregiving support that meets people where they are.
Family caregiving is framed as a responsibility that changes over time, not a role someone simply takes on once and keeps in the same shape. Julie Mendez of Northwest Senior and Disability Services connects those changes to work schedules, retirement, family demands, and…
A clear, practical look at family caregivers and the support that can help them keep going.
Family caregiving sits at the center of this episode, framed as both a service issue and a health issue for the person providing care. Julie Mendez of Northwest Senior and Disability Services describes how the Family Caregiver Support Program begins by learning the shape of each…
A grounded dementia-care discussion that balances treatment progress, uncertainty, and cautious hope.
Aging in the Willamette Valley uses dementia medication to show both the progress in care and the uncertainty families still have to navigate.
A clear, grounded conversation about dementia medications, cautious hope, and the limits of treatment.
Aging in the Willamette Valley takes dementia medication as a practical way into the larger reality of Alzheimer's and dementia. The host and John Hughes briefly return to earlier points about dementia, then move into drugs that may treat symptoms without curing the disease.
Presley Reeder and John Hughes talk through dementia care, multivitamins, and diet in a relaxed community-radio conversation.
On Aging in the Willamette Valley, Presley Reeder invites her regular co-host John Hughes into the guest chair for a conversation about Alzheimer's care. Hughes traces his interest in dementia care to family experience and to his work running a local in-home care provider.


Plain-spoken conversations for aging with dignity.




Hosts interview a Medicare expert about changes and options for seniors in the Willamette Valley.
Jerry Norton of Mind and Body CBD Wellness explains why hemp legal status, the 0.3% THC limit, and CBD research have changed what listeners hear about the plant.
Family caregiver support specialist Julie Mendez of Northwest Senior and Disability Services explains caregiver support programs to hosts Presley Reeder and John Hughes on KMUZ Community Radio's Aging in the Willamette Valley.
Family caregiver support specialist Julie Mendez, who has worked at Northwest Senior and Disability Services (NWSDS) for 22 years, explains the organization's Family Caregiver Support Program to hosts Presley Reeder and John Hughes on KMUZ Community Radio.
John Hughes and Presley Reeder focus this Aging in the Willamette Valley episode on dementia medication, after revisiting the five things they learned about dementia in 2022.
Presley Reeder and John Hughes focus on dementia medication on KMUZ's Aging in the Willamette Valley, building on a prior 2022 dementia episode.
John Hughes says a new Alzheimer's drug reduced cognitive decline by 27% over 18 months.
Hosts Presley Reeder and John Hughes interview Medicare expert Alex Johnson II about annual changes to Medicare and supplemental plans for seniors.
Hosts Presley Reeder and John Hughes interview Medicare expert Alex Johnson II about annual changes to Medicare plans and the alphabet soup of parts.
Hosts interview AARP's Senior VP of Government Affairs about the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare provisions.
Hosts interview AARP's Senior VP of Government Affairs about the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare provisions.
A podcast discussing the joys and challenges of growing older in the Mid-Valley, featuring local experts and services like the Villages Network.
Hosts Presley Reeder and John Hughes introduce a music therapy expert to discuss benefits of music for aging adults.
Hosts interview the manager of Center 50+ about services and resources for seniors in the Willamette Valley.