Staying fit, inside and out

Nursing Homes, Feb, 2004 by Todd Hutlock

In most retirement communities, fitness programs are simply another activity. Like bridge games and outings to the mall, exercise is an optional activity offered by a facility in the interest of keeping residents happy and healthy. At Vista del Monte Retirement Community in Santa Barbara, California, however, physical fitness is more than just another way to profitably kill time during the day--it's the cornerstone of a way of life.

Vista del Monte, part of the Front Porch organization (the largest Southern California-based nonprofit provider of retirement housing, healthcare, and other services to seniors), opened its Fitness & Aquatic Center in January 2000, and the community has been reaping the benefits ever since. The campus has about 270 residents across three levels of care--assisted living, skilled nursing, and independent living. There is also a special needs facility that handles residents with cognitive impairment issues. The Fitness & Aquatic Center is centrally located and is accessible to all.

Vista del Monte's program provides physical exercise, wellness education, restorative therapy, and other life-enhancement activities for residents, staff, and many other Santa Barbara community members. The approximately 8,200-square-foot Center is staffed by 18 therapy and fitness professionals, as well as approximately 50 senior volunteers. It features a shallow, warm-water exercise pool that is also used as a lap pool and a hydrotherapy pool, as well as a strength training and conditioning room, locker/shower/ changing rooms, and a physical therapy evaluation/massage therapy room.

In addition to Vista del Monte community members and staff, the Center is used by more than 400 senior (age 50 and up) community members, and it is leased to a children's swim school during evening hours. Vista del Monte Director of Fitness & Aquatics Peggy Buchanan points out that although the Center is used by all ages, it is not technically an "all-ages" facility: "During the actual scheduled open hours, when we're billed as a fitness center for older adults, we're targeting people over 50. Once those hours are over, we lease our pool and our facility to a swim school and they teach young children. We don't dislike mixing older and younger people, but in this environment, it is a safety issue." Buchanan says that the facility is open and accessible to residents during unscheduled hours of operation, and many derive great pleasure from watching babies and children learning to swim in the evenings. "We also have an intern program with three colleges," Buchanan adds. "They actually earn school credit for coming to work with older adults during the day."

While the physical fitness program has obvious health benefits for seniors, Buchanan claims that there is another aspect of the program that improves quality of life for all participants: "Having a place for socialization is equal to the physical benefits that are being achieved here. When people think of fitness and aquatic centers, they think of an improved physical condition. That's a given. If they make the effort to get here, we know they're going to improve physically. The part that I think most people don't realize is that with the commitment to the physical comes a better sense of self-esteem, a more socially connected individual."

In fact, Vista del Monte and Front Porch have designed a lifestyle model that is based on physical activity. "We call ours a Vitality Program," explains Buchanan, "and we have a diagram that is shaped like a V [figure]. At the bottom of the V is the physical, and growing from that are the social, intellectual, emotional, vocational, and spiritual aspects of life. Without the physical, it makes getting those other aspects very difficult. For example, if you can't get on the bus to go to the opera in the evening with your friends, then your social life will be affected.

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"Most people create their wellness model in a circle," continues Buchanan, "and they show you each one of these aspects through pie shapes. We thought that with such a diagram, the physical gets lost; it is really the all-bearing point from which everything else grows."

This attitude toward wellness has made Vista del Monte a generally more accepting community. Given that socialization can be problematic for many elderly communities, this is no small victory. "Vista Del Monte is absolutely a more social and welcoming community because of the Fitness & Aquatic Center," says Buchanan. Benefits don't stop there, either: "It provides a wonderful opportunity for increased revenue through the nonresidents who use the facility, which keeps the cost down for the residents."

So while a fitness center may seem on the surface to be just another item in a list of amenities offered by a retirement community, Vista del Monte serves as an example of how promoting physical wellness can enhance and enrich many aspects of seniors' lives--more independence, more socialization, more availability to the community at large. "It has also provided a positive marketing element that we hadn't anticipated," Buchanan adds. "We're getting people off the street coming in and saying, 'Oh my gosh--you mean I could live here?' It's also an opportunity for seniors to volunteer and go back to work. It gives them a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning."