In 2025, senior living providers are continuing to find new ways of improving resident health and wellness through the use of integrating technology and fitness programming.

Wellness plays a big role in senior living programming and operations, and operators are blending technology-enabled fitness equipment to improve resident health outcomes and better personalize resident care plans.

For example, senior living operators have made strides to bring technology into the gym through the use of wearable devices including smart watches, heart rate monitors and other wearables that can mesh with their smartphones.

The benefits of personalizing resident fitness programming through the use of technology doesn’t end once a resident gets off the treadmill or finishes an organized group program. Improved fitness tracking and uptake of resident participation have allowed Atria Senior living, Lifespace Communities, Maplewood Senior Living and Mather to personalize wellness goals for older adults.

But implementing new, tech-enabled fitness equipment requires strategic operational rollout, and sometimes faces a risk of residents not participating and gravitating to new fitness gear.

“Just because it’s the latest and greatest equipment and it’s got all the bells and whistles doesn’t mean that it’s going to be effective,” Maplewood Senior Living Vice President of Enterprise Intelligence Brian Geyser told Senior Housing News.

By blending low-tech fitness equipment with new equipment, from connectable treadmills to balance machines and personalized training, operators have been able to inspire residents to use wearable devices to track their fitness journeys more closely—and at greater frequency, Geyser told SHN.

New communities, renovations ripe for fitness innovation

While senior living development remains at a slowed pace, operators that have pursued new growth in ways including renovating existing properties to building anew. As they do so, senior living companies are improving and upgrading their fitness capabilities.

Maplewood built a wellness center at its latest community, Inspir Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., and gleaned insights from resident preferences at its Inspir Carnegie Hill community in New York City to determine what equipment to include, Geyser said.

Maplewood Senior Living

The community is located in the former Fairfax Hotel in D.C. and includes 174 private apartments with assisted living and memory care services.

Maplewood planned its wellness programming around new fitness equipment, wearable and predictive health monitoring devices and a lifestyle engagement platform that gives personalized health insights to residents and their care teams, Geyser noted.

Maplewood Senior Living

“It’s a sophisticated, deep dive resident profile that helps us understand what our residents preferences are, what their previous fitness regimens were like, what their goals are, how much they’re into wellness versus how much they’re not,” Geyser added.

Maplewood learned from its New York City Inspir community that advanced fitness equipment, from treadmills to stationary bicycles and ellipticals, could intimidate residents who aren’t familiar with the equipment, Geyser said. That prompted staff to get new equipment of similar machines with pared-down options, such as treadmills with touchscreens showing various landscapes for exercise, Geyser said.

Newer equipment used by Maplewood allows for “pace partners” with virtual trainers giving instruction along a resident’s workout and displayed health metrics Geyser described as user-friendly. A pace partner is a virtual character or system that can help those using the equipment to remain at a similar speed during the course of their exercise.

Lifespace Communities included a new fitness center in its recent, $112 million redesign and renovation of its Oak Trace Senior Living community in Downers Grove, Illinois. The operator added equipment specifically designed for older adults through pneumatic resistance technology, which uses air pressure to provide resistance that reduces physical stress on residents during exercise, according to Fitness Lead at Oak Trace Lifespace Communities Gina O’Leary.

Residents use the new equipment and can access personal workout data, including the resident’s name, seat height and load capacity from previous exercise.

“The technology of them feeling like they don’t have to remember what to do has made it very user friendly and giving people confidence to do this,” O’Leary told SHN. “I think it’s great and technology is what is contributing to the success that the residents are having.”

The data, which includes how often residents use workout equipment and personalized fitness summaries can reveal health changes that residents and staff might not otherwise have noticed, O’Leary added.

Evanston, Illinois-based Mather also deploys similar gear for some of its fitness equipment, such as seated and press machines that offer pneumatic resistance, at its latest community The Mather Tysons in Tysons, Virginia. Residents also have access to other devices, including treadmills with interactive screens, according to Mather LifeWays Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Meredith Boyle.

Mather

“Any time we’re introducing a new piece of equipment or technology or concept, we must do a lot of education,” Boyle said.

Other new equipment includes compression and massage devices that allow for Bluetooth connectivity to resident smartphones for specific massage settings in recovery from workouts, Boyle added. Mather Tysons residents also have access to a wellness suite and spa.

Mather

This connection, beyond the fitness area, connects resident fitness goals with wellness goals, Matther Assistant Vice President William Myers said. For example, Mather uses a chair that has an acoustic vibration and light system for meditation and relaxation, Myers said.

“We’re finding a lot more engagement throughout the entire continuum from pre-workout and post-workout to create a wellness experience,” Myers added. “This is where technology is showing up even more than just the equipment.”

Fitness to support balance, strength with technology

Reducing resident falls and improving resident balance are common aspects for senior living fitness programming. Some operators are integrating group fitness programming and fall prevention with new sensor technology.

Atria Senior Living recently launched a partnership with a balance-focused fitness technology firm that provides a device known as a stability scale. It measures resident’s balance and offers a baseline health measurements, according to Atria Vice President of Resident Engagement Justin Guest.

The company is currently engaged in a pilot program wherein the device measures resident balance and creates strength training fitness programming for residents, extending benefits beyond just a workout, Guest noted.

“We can align specific fitness programs that align with some of their goals that are going to help reduce those falls and there’s no one-size-fits-all for technology, but it’s a matter of how we evaluate and use the equipment in communities that have these needs,” Guest added.

Geyser said he believes technology will continue to become part of all aspects of senior living, from ambient technology including room-based fall detection sensors and wearable devices in combination with residents entering communities with more smart devices. Maplewood has deployed a platform called Augi in its communities to passively monitor memory care residents and help care teams create more personalized care plans.

“Just the insights you can glean from data coupled with information about your lifestyle is incredibly helpful and if we can couple all of the data with our observations about our residents, we’ll be able to help them live their best lives and that’s the hope for technology integration in the future,” Geyser said.

Through tech integration and fitness programming, Guest sees a path forward in which senior living residents can continue to personalize their own fitness and exercise lifestyles.

“We also just have that human element of needing to help better their health,” Guest said. “We need to work with them, work with their family and really try to understand what’s going on.”