You can listen to Episode S4E9 right here!
Valerie Adler
Hello and welcome to the Third Age design podcast sharing essential information on senior environments. I’m Valerie Adler. This month’s guest is an award winning author who has written more than 300 articles published in places such as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek and the annual review of gerontology and geriatrics, to name but a few. He’s also a contributor to the World Economic Forum, which has referred to him as one of the most innovative and influential minds in the world on aging related topics. He’s the CEO of the International Council on active aging, we welcome Colin Milner. Colin is based in Canada and will be staying in North America for our innovation spotlight, a New England based retirement community located within a university campus. The Third Age design podcast is supported by visner bosserhoff. Elevate nursing care with intelligent beds from visner bosserhoff, blending modern, smart day technology with comfort, empowering caregivers worldwide. Discover more at www.wi-bo.com – that’s www dot w i dash b o dot com, now let’s join Colin and Lori.
Colin Milner
Thank you very much for having me. I’m thrilled to be with you today, and it’s always great to speak with someone who has a passion for what we’re going to talk about today.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yes, and obviously you do, and that’s my first question. Is, I’ve done my background research, I think, and I believe you were in the field of exercise equipment and then went into this. So what actually spawned your interest, specifically in sort of later living and active senior living?
Colin Milner
Well, actually, my interest started even before then I started my, really, my career in the health and fitness field at the age of 21 and after about six months, I I realized very quickly that I got very tired of trying to help young people make bigger biceps. What I was really interested in was helping the individuals that were coming into the fitness clubs who were struggling to improve their quality of life. And as it turns out, many of them happen to be older, so that’s where my interest really first started. But it got literally put on steroids, if I could use that term from the fitness industry, when I was the VP of Sales and Marketing for Kaiser fitness equipment, because a lot of the initial research that was done on strength training and aging that truly transformed where we are today was done with Kaiser equipment in the early 1990s and what it showed was, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always reverse some of the loss that we have experienced. And the question becomes, is, how much of that loss will improve your quality of life if you can reverse that? And what
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
have you found? Have you found that it that is really, truly the case that you can reverse and improve your quality of life at almost at any age?
Colin Milner
Well, between the ages of 35 and 70, we lose about 50% of our strength and 75% of our power. The problem is that most people have come to believe that that’s just a natural process of aging, or I should say, most people of my parents generation, my generation has grown up with the fitness industry. It’s grown up with Jane Fonda and all these other people who have kind of transformed that way of thinking. And what we know today is that it is never too late to start, and that you can absolutely regain much of the strength that you have lost, much of the power you have lost, which completely can transform someone’s life. The key is you have to do it.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yes, and we had a guest on the podcast, Sir Muir Gray, a few episodes ago who was speaking on a similar thing. It’s use it or lose it, but also that losing, losing everything as you age isn’t necessarily a natural part of of aging was, and I think you’re making a similar a similar point.
Colin Milner
Yeah, it’s far from it. A lot of our loss comes from us, us not doing things, us eating improperly, us, smoking us, you know, drinking alcohol, all of these things add to our loss of ability, our loss of capabilities. And it also comes to us to transform that back the other way.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And it doesn’t have anything to do at all with the hours that I spend. On a computer, does it?
Colin Milner
Oh, of course not. Of course not. I think that that might have a little bit to do with it. But, I mean, think about it, we wait, we sleep, which, if you look at the astronauts in space, when they sleep, they atrophy, actually, in space, day atrophy period. But when we sleep, we atrophy, and yeah, and then we wake up. We get in a chair, eat, eat breakfast, and we get in a car, and we’re sitted or seated. And then we go to work. We’re seated. We get in a car, come home, we’re seated. We sit at the dinner table. We’re seated, and then we sit down and watch TV. Most of us are in a seated position for most of the day. We just got to get up and move our butts to try and counteract that.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I happen to know that your psoas muscles don’t like that, which is part of your central, core. So you you took this concept, you saw that things were not happening in this particular area, and you founded the International Council on active aging, for anybody that is not already familiar with this. Can you explain what you do?
Colin Milner
We are a mission driven association that is focused on helping to change the way we age and the way that people perceive the older population, and it’s our contention that we can do that by helping people to become healthier. The healthier you are, the more you get involved in society. Theoretically, the more you are engaged in life, the less caregiving that is required, the less burden, which is the way many people view older adults. Still today, you are and your family. So our thinking is if we can help educate those who work with older adults and how to help their residents or their members or citizens to live better longer. We can change the way we age on a local, national and global level, and
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
thus the international approach to what you’re doing.
Colin Milner
There you go. We’re in 57 countries.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
That is fantastic. We’re only in 16 so far. But actually, the Third Age design podcast had a similar approach, which is, if we can share this information, it’s going to benefit everybody. And so from from the off, we were interested in having these international conversations, in addition to the conferences that you do at the ICAA and your articles and things, your website publishes research. It publishes white papers on topics that are related to active aging. And one thing I noticed doing the research is I really have to stress to the people listening, how influential and how quickly the ideas that you and the ICA double A do you call it the ICAA or the ICAA ICAA, the ICAA,
Colin Milner
we could be one of those car agencies if you wanted, Like, you know the AAA, but not yet,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
okay, iCall it’ll stay. Then people need to understand how innovative you are and how quickly things turn around. So, for example, you had a forum in 2021 where you said, you know, we need a definition, industry wide definition of what wellness is. And then by June of this year, you’d already concluded that regardless of the definition, the goal is the same. And this is kind of the focus of today’s podcast. Really your definition, or your goal, if you will, was a purpose, filled and engaged life for individuals. So there must be so many potential advantages to wellness in communities, but that’s not really what’s being sold to people when they’re going, for example, into a retirement community. They’re not being sold necessarily on a purpose, filled and engaged life. I mean, we’re we are pushing this. So my question, I will get to it now, is actually in three parts. Colin, so first of all, why is that not what’s being sold? Second of all, what are we losing out on as a result of that. And finally, if you can remember all these bits, what do we need to do to change things?
Colin Milner
Well, I think why is behavior change, and that is, I’ve been trying to get rid of Diet Coke since I was 21 and I haven’t been able to do it yet. It’s. Your change, it is replacing it with something else that is going to give you as much satisfaction. And if your business is care, and that’s what you’ve built your whole business model around, for a lot of people, it makes them very nervous to change that model, but we need to reflect what is happening in society as a whole, and there’s this massive transformation taking place, where people have been told by the media, now by research, by politicians, by almost any and everyone, that you can live better longer. You have all this potential inside of you. You You just need to embrace it. And if communities don’t reflect that, they are missing out on millions and millions of potential residents who are looking for those solutions. All of us want to live in an environment that is supportive of the kind of lifestyle we wish no one wants to, you know, really move into somewhere that is going to have someone that’s going to come and clean your butt. I mean, to be frank, that that that’s a little degrading for most people. So the reality not not downgrading the value of it, because for some people, it’s extremely needed and valuable. But our goal is, how do we prevent the person needing that in the first place? And you know, communities are changing. When I first started, a Wellness Center was donated equipment and small little apartment that was left over that wasn’t rented. Now many of our members, which are 10,000 strong in all different levels of senior living communities, have standalone wellness centers on their properties that are 1020, 30, 40,000 square feet. That certainly isn’t the norm, but it is changing. Our latest research shows that 81% of those that we surveyed recently, a couple months ago, see wellness as a high or essential priority, so much so that in the next five years, they expect to move 61% of them do to a wellness based community with care versus a care based community, will with wellness? Will we get there? I think a large portion will. I think some that’s hyperbole. They they’re excited, and they see the the train coming down the track. They just haven’t figured out how to jump on yet, but they’ll get there
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
in terms of somebody’s life purpose. When you’re waking up in the morning, let’s say you are retired. If you are well enough, you’re going to be able to continue to contribute to society in some way, rather than this idea of putting old people someplace and and them not necessarily being relevant. You’ve got, you’ve got decades of experience. You have you have creativity. You have people that have seen it all before that that if they’re well, they can interact with a with a broader community,
Colin Milner
absolutely. And I think the thing is, a lot of times we try and get focused on purpose, not like us to focus on the word purposeful, because purpose is this big, hairy, audacious goal that most of us probably never actually figure out that word, but day to day, being purposeful is crucial to living a well life, and yes, it is. The key to that is simply understanding that you can and embracing it. I don’t know how many people I’ve run across over the years who have said, you know, I’ve done a I was in a wheelchair, and I got stronger, and I moved from the wheelchair to a walker, and then I got stronger, and I moved from a walker to a cane, and then I moved from a cane to walking independently. That doesn’t happen to everybody, but that can happen to many, if they choose. So the key with all of this is choice. How do we want to live our latter years? It’s really that simple.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Linked to that is something that I was kind of talking around just a moment ago, and that is this idea of social isolation, which sometimes arises around senior communities. So my theory is, and I think when we spoke on the phone earlier, I shared this with you, young kids want to hang out with the older kids, don’t they? I mean, generally, you’re always, you know, and older people don’t just want to hang out with older people, because real life is not like that. Yeah, and so my question to you is, I don’t know if it’s around activity. I don’t know what it’s around, but how can we as developers or designers or architects of building and environments? How can we create environments that would encourage this interaction? Is it the building itself, or is it the location?
Colin Milner
I think it’s the programs, because I’ll give you an example, Willow Valley in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They have this incredible center that they opened up. And I went out there and I saw it, and it has pinball it has bowling alleys, has a swimming pool, it has meeting rooms, it has a fitness center in it, and it’s all designed for all generations to participate with. And one of the things that they do is that they have the kids. Instead of going to summer camp, they host the summer camps on the property. The goal is to get it so that the kids want to come to the community instead of not come to the community. Now, that’s more like the grandkids. You know, having adult, if we could call it such, whatever adult means. But if we have those kinds of activities that you can participate with your parents as well. The The key is to provide the opportunity for interaction into you know, we’re all interdependent, and if we can find ways to be interdependent, together and be interconnected, we can support our own endured. That’s a hard word to say this morning, independence and and it all comes back to doing things together that we like. You know, a lot of times we pre program communities to the degree that we don’t give people the freedom to do the things that they like. We just expect that they’re going to do the things we want them to do. So I think, you know, if, if we really understand our residents, we would also give them the ability to create that synergy amongst generations. I’ll give you a quick example, and that is, if I like running the marathon, I’m going to hang out with people who like running the marathon. Doesn’t matter whether they’re young or old, as simple as that,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right? And so if we’re designing buildings and environments that have a certain amount of flexibility built into the spaces that aren’t personal, spaces that might be adaptable in terms of even room sizes or acoustics or things, if we’re looking at the insides rather than the outsides for just a moment, then that maybe fosters more creativity in terms of just Having a standard quote, unquote activities room, which will have paints in a drawer and a sink. Oh,
Colin Milner
yeah, I mean that that to me, that that is so without sounding awful here, but it’s 2030, years ago that model today, what we’re looking at is you hit the magic word flexibility. You want to be able to have space that can be flexible, that can adapt to what is going on within that space. But you also want to have space that is able to support professional delivery of programs and delivery of programs by residents. Our latest research that happened about a month and a half ago shows that 90% of programs are delivered by individuals that are professionals that work within the community, wellness directors, fitness directors, what have you. And about 80% of the programs are also delivered by residents. So we need not only a flexible mind, but a flexible space to enhance what goes on in that mind, that
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
that wouldn’t be residents living a purposeful life, by any chance? Would it?
Colin Milner
Oh, my goodness. Imagine that. Why would we want that? What? What is wrong with having a happy, healthy resident? Oh, my goodness. No one would want that. Would they
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
and some creativity and some giving back and some other things that we normally do in our in our day to day lives when we’re not considered necessarily older for listeners in other countries. Colin, can you describe what is meant by the US term campus as it relates to the sector, because we’ve had Melinda aviatorio using the word campus, and later in the program, I’m going to be mentioning lacelle village in Massachusetts, which is exactly that. It’s literally a scene. Community located on a university campus. But what else might the term campus refer to in a US context, just for people overseas? A lot of times
Colin Milner
it really describes larger properties, properties like continuing care, retirement communities that have independent living, assisted living, long term care. They have memory care. They have palliative care. It’s a full campus of all the different services they have. Sorry,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I’m not trying to be rude, but that was memory care, not memory care.
Colin Milner
That’s right, memory care. Memory Care.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Thank you. Just
Colin Milner
checking I’m Jamaican who lives in Canada, spends most of the time in the US and has a British passport. So hell, I don’t know what my words sound like sometimes, but yes, memory care and so that is a full campus of all the different services. I mean, you know, campus can be used very loosely to just describe the property, but I think when you’re looking at Campus, from my end, I look at it as a large property that has many different services that fall under just like a university,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right, okay? And thus, thus the name probably came from that university model. And it’s interesting, because depending on where in the world you are, so Japan would be one example the United Kingdom, and another where space is really at a premium, yes, but they still might have a campus, even though the campus might consist of a roof terrace or some sort of garden around a facility. It could still be a smaller, contained location, but it could still have some of these offers with the wider community, couldn’t it? Yeah,
Colin Milner
it has all the different elements, really, and that’s what you’re talking about. You’re talking about all these different elements that come together to create this form of a campus that you can live in. Okay,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I really like the term. I’d love us to start using that here in the UK. I think it, it broadens the mind away from the idea of a building, yes, into an offer, which is kind of a different, a whole different approach. I’ve seen in some of your literature that you mentioned spaces for internet, shopping and deliveries. Now we have, I’ve never been asked to do that, but it makes so much sense. What uptake Have you had on that?
Colin Milner
Think about it, and that is, at least in the US and Canada, the world is all about Amazon and Amazon deliveries, FedEx deliveries, pure later. There’s so much in the pandemic, especially there’s so much foods that were delivered and products that were delivered. Where do you hold them? If people aren’t at home, where did they get delivered? So having those kinds of spaces, once again, flexible spaces, is really key. And I don’t think that the online end of things is going to be slowing down anytime soon.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
It doesn’t seem like it. And I think one of, one of the things I read, also mentioned, you know, even about food deliveries. You know, you don’t necessarily want the Chinese takeaway being walked all the way through the building by somebody who’s, you know, not necessarily meant to be there. So,
Colin Milner
you mean, you don’t want it dripping along the floor.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
No. Interior Designers hate that. I will just say, because you were mentioning the pandemic, I really wish at the beginning I had thought to invest in cardboard. Yes. I mean, please, I would have
Colin Milner
loved to invest in cardboard, any kind of delivery service or PDP,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
yeah. I mean, the the other kind of so that’s one space that we’re just talking about, internet shopping in that kind of space. The other thing is, we’re often asked to locate a gym in the way that you mentioned earlier, which is, you know, a couple of pieces of equipment, maybe a mirror on one wall and a yoga mat, and it’s usually, as you said, either in a spare room that’s on the small side or in a basement. I’m guessing you don’t like that idea.
Colin Milner
Oh, I hate that idea. Well, no, let me, let me rephrase that. Years ago, I used to travel a lot, and I was in. I would stay at hotels that had state of the art fitness equipment, and it was equipment in the basement right by a sauna. The equipment was all rusted out, and it was really deceptive advertising. And to me, if we are going to be. True to a wellness message, we also need to be true to what we call wellness and how we deliver it, and delivering something that has no staff in a setting that is inappropriate, really, it really counters what the wellness message is all about. That’s not to say to go out and build a bat at big, huge center. It’s just simply to say, if you’re going to focus on wellness, you need to start with one word, commitment. If you don’t have the commitment to do it properly, don’t do it because you do yourself and your residents and their family, a disservice,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
a tick box exercise, rather than what you were saying, a an actual commitment, absolutely,
Colin Milner
absolutely. And it’s easy to tick a box. It’s hard to fulfill a commitment. And the commitment, once you start down that path, includes staffing, it includes onboarding, it includes policies, it includes your marketing, it includes your people, it includes everything. And sometimes we’re just not ready to make that move. But let me tell you that wellness is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the question is whether you are involved or not. You know your customer will be. The question is whether you are
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right, and whether that’s integrated into your mission. For what it is that you’re you’re providing, you mentioned staff, and there’s sort of a after the pandemic, a global lack of staff available and retention is proving very difficult as well. Do you have any research back on how any of this, the wellness program or that sort of focus, has affected staff and or staff retention?
Colin Milner
Well, I think it we don’t have definitive research. What we do know, as an example is that wellness, when it comes to residents, will help a resident stay in your property 2.7 years longer. So if you were looking at apartments or rentals or anything like that, you’re talking about significant revenue. We know from a staffing perspective that if you have a healthier engaged staff, that they are going to be just that healthier, and they’re probably going to be a better ambassador for your organization. Now, the question is, with all of this going on and burnout and staff loss and so forth, could wellness reduce that? I believe it can. I think wellness is a more positive approach than you know, dealing with care day in day out. That’s not to say that once again, that there’s a diminished value in that. It’s just simply a different level of stress. And I think that wellness your staff stick around probably longer because of that,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right? So you’re, you’re you’re saying to your entire organization, we’re in the Wellness Business as it filters down through all and in fact, I read a document that you had produced on senior living communities that deals with this, that if it goes through every single level of the organization, the mindset changes for everyone. Well,
Colin Milner
think, think about the money that people spend to go to all these wellness resorts. And if you look at the world or the global wellness association or global wellness Institute, their numbers show that if somebody is purchasing a wellness property that they will spend about 25% more. So you have residents that are staying longer, spending more, happier, healthier, able to do more, and they tend to also attract other people like themselves. I don’t see the downside, except for how you view your own property.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
This obviously changes the model what you’re talking about somewhat from the status quo, and I would say more than somewhat, quite significantly, what do you see as the future directions on this and the senior living sort of industry,
Colin Milner
I think we are at a fork in the road, and that is, we’re going to have those who will continue down the path just the way they have. They will probably still be around, and they will certainly fill a need. But I think we will see others go down this new path. They will be more attractive to a younger resident, they will have greater sustainability, because people will be healthier in their communities and stay with them longer, so their costs will be lower, and we’ll just simply see an industry that will, you know, go in two different directions, and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. The only thing you need to figure out is, do you want to serve the very small percentage of the population that community serve right now, or do you want to serve a much larger percentage who are looking to live better longer in a community that supports that?
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Is it going to come down to cost point? Are we going to end up with people not having this offer of wellness on the cheaper end of the market only because that seems like a disservice kind of to humanity.
Colin Milner
I think the problem is that people perceive that wellness is for the rich and it’s not, you know, being spiritually Well, socially Well, physically engaged has nothing to do with money. Okay, if you want to go to a fitness center, then, yes, there’s money involved. There are lots of low cost fitness centers if you don’t have one at your community. But all of the different areas of wellness I can be engaged in, and it doesn’t matter as far as dollars, how it’s delivered, will change, of course, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have access to it
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
in terms of budgets, we always have some limitations. And what happens to us as designers and architects is people will build a building, and that’s where all their money’s going, you know, they’ve got this big building project, and everybody’s walking around in hardhats, very excited about the whole thing, and then the technologies come in, of which there are a lot, and then they take another whole portion of the overall budget, and then we’re left, as designers with with whatever’s left over. And you know what? We can deal with that, because we’re creative, we can find ways around that. But it begs the question, with all of these technologies coming our way that’s supposed to revolutionize active aging, are there any particular ones or types of technologies that you think are really worth consideration and really worth giving up some of the budget toward
Colin Milner
Yeah, I think technologies that people use, there’s a lot of what I call bling things out there, but I think it’s all about the technologies that people use. We see wearables are becoming, you know, adopted by older adults and by community. We see artificial intelligence. There’s a lot of things like DNA and genetics that haven’t had broad reach yet within the community that will be sooner or later. There’s artificial intelligence, there’s robotics. Those things will come sooner or later. They’re not there yet. So you look at what is it that will actually enhance someone’s experience? And that could be as simple as, you know, streaming services to wearables, to, you know, whatever you think your residents will use,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right? Or even something like a zoom technology or a way of speaking to friends who maybe are not as mobile as they used to be and located someplace else because they’re not in a wellness village.
Colin Milner
Exactly, exactly.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
That’s really, really been a useful dialog today. Colin, I want to thank you so much for being a guest on the Third Age design podcast. Thank you so much.
Colin Milner
It’s been my pleasure, Lori, and am I happy to do it? Anytime you wish, you’re
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
going to be sorry you said that at the beginning of the podcast, I mentioned something which may have piqued your interest. This concept certainly captured mine. This month’s innovation spotlight is shining on LaSalle village in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. This is a senior living community with a big difference, inspired by LaSalle University, this is the USA first senior living community to require each resident to commit to continuing education, taking lifelong learning to a whole new level. Residents take college courses alongside students who are pursuing degrees. And the village also offers a personalized fitness service in addition to their well being center the community. Itself and many other amenities. Remember the sense of purpose, or purposefulness that we were discussing earlier in the podcast with Colin? Well, this initiative is one which will really get you thinking quite literally. You’ll find a link for more information on the podcast page for this episode at WWW dot, Third Age Dot Design.
Valerie Adler
Huge thanks to Colin Milner for joining us on the show, and also to our producer, Mike Scales, and to Peter Thorne, who composed our theme music and is playing the piano with Mary Blanchard on flute. We’re grateful for support from visner bosserhoff, empowering caregivers worldwide. Finally, thank you for listening and for being part of a community who believes we can improve senior environments together. If you haven’t already done so, please visit our website at Third Age, Dot Design and click the Join Us button to receive exclusive quarterly content. I’m Valerie Adler, and I hope you’ll join us for the next one.
