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The Rise of Longevity Communities and Cognitive Wellness with Ted Teele
According to Ted Teele from Longevity Community Consultants, transforming senior living requires a radical shift to meet the expectations of baby boomers, and longevity communities offer a promising solution by embedding scientific wellness into aging. With a focus on prevention, personalized health strategies, and community engagement, these innovative spaces aspire to enhance overall quality of life for seniors.
• Exploring the rise of longevity communities
• Emphasizing the role of scientific wellness in aging
• Understanding the four P's: predicting, preventing, personalizing, and participating in health
• Highlighting the importance of health assessments in preventative care
• Discussing the role of technology in enhancing well-being
• Creating a supportive and fun environment for healthy living
• Identifying cognitive improvement clubs as a vehicle for attracting residents
• Leveraging marketing to change perceptions of senior living
• Understanding the financial benefits of longevity community models
• Proposing actionable strategies for senior living providers to attract baby boomers
White Papers:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-senior-living-providers-can-attract-56ere/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-blueprint-supporting-healthy-aging-2jw9e/
Ted Teele's LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teele-26b3421/
Longevity Community Consultants: https://www.linkedin.com/company/longevitycommunityconsultants
I think we all know and you hear about it all the time senior living needs to change to attract and inspire baby boomers. One of the points that I made is if 90% of the target market doesn't want a product senior living the change has to be fundamental. At the same time, there's this major trend in society around longevity. Billions of dollars are being spent in that area and all of the scientific developments over the last 20 years have made the idea of scientific wellness possible. So if you believe all that, then the future of senior living lies in embracing scientific wellness and the longevity community concepts.
John Hauber:Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. If you are an owner operator, investor, developer or buyer of senior housing, you've come to the right place. The best way to stay connected with us is to sign up for our weekly newsletter at havenseniorinvestments. com. This podcast doesn't exist without you, our community. Thank you for listening and reach out to us anytime. Today, we welcome Ted Teal back to the show. Are you ready to learn about the latest in longevity communities? Listen in, as our host, John Hauber, has a great conversation with Ted John.
John Hauber:Thanks, Kelsey. Today's speaker is someone whose story and mission continue to inspire many in the senior living industry. Ted Teele is a Harvard MBA, the former CEO of Touchdown, a leader in engagement technology for senior living and the CEO of Longevity Community Consultants. Ted's journey into the field of longevity science began in 2019 when he underwent quintuple bypass surgery. That life-changing experience motivated him to immerse himself in the science of aging for his own longevity and to find innovative ways to help others improve cognitive skills and live healthier, happier, longer lives.
John Hauber:He has since developed the groundbreaking concept of longevity communities and published two insightful white papers of new blueprint for supporting healthy aging and how senior living providers can attract more baby boomers, both of which are available with the links below the podcast. Ted, welcome back to the podcast.
Ted Teele:It's an honor to be back. I'm thrilled to discuss these important issues with you and your tremendous audience. Discuss these important issues with you and your tremendous audience.
John Hauber:Well, the last time you joined us, you introduced the concept of longevity communities, and that episode became one of our most downloaded interviews ever. Congratulations on that achievement.
Ted Teele:Thanks, John. That means a lot. I think it reflects the growing interest in transforming senior living to better meet the needs and aspirations of baby boomers.
John Hauber:Absolutely. Before we dive into your second white paper, how senior living providers can attract more baby boomers, can you tell our audience what a longevity community is and why are they needed?
Ted Teele:Great question, john. Longevity communities will make it easier and more fun for people to enhance their cognitive skills and live healthier, happier and longer lives.
John Hauber:Well I'm curious, Ted, how will they accomplish that?
Ted Teele:The foundation of longevity communities will be scientific wellness, as described in the book the Age of Scientific Wellness by the legendary biologist Lee Hood and his brilliant longtime associate Nathan Price, both faculty members of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Scientific wellness is a 21st century approach to health and wellness utilizing rigorous science. There are four P's of scientific wellness. The first P is to predict diseases before they manifest clinically. As we all know, our healthcare system today is primarily sick care and doesn't do a great job of predicting or preventing disease. There are screening tests that can be done, but unfortunately, generally checkups consist of a minimum of testing and screening, with certain exceptions like colon and breast cancer screens, and they have you write down your family history, which is okay, but it would be so much better if they looked at your actual genes and looked at your actual risk factors. Scientific wellness looks at a lot more of your biology on a regular basis and uses AI to compare your unique biology to many other anonymized health records to predict disease.
Ted Teele:Most people believe that you're healthy until you're sick, but in reality there's a disease transition process that in many cases lasts years. That was true for my coronary artery disease, which could have been identified years ago if I was a patient of scientific wellness approaches. If I had known about the disease much sooner, I could have made adjustments which might have prevented the need for my bypass surgery. Sadly, 50% of the cases of coronary artery disease today aren't identified until someone dies of a heart attack. So the goal is to predict it and then, once you can predict it, you want to prevent it.
Ted Teele:By the way, one other thing that's really interesting to me it is now possible to find pancreatic cancer two years before there are any clinical signs. They can find it because there is a unique aggregation of proteins that only exists inside people who are in the disease transition process for pancreatic cancer. And, of course, it's much easier to deal with a disease when it's very small. Sadly, most people who get pancreatic cancer don't find it until it's stage three or four, and by then it's too late. So, after predicting disease, the second P of scientific wellness is to prevent disease, or at least to find it while it's in the disease transition stage and very small and much more easily treated. This leads to the third P, which are personalized recommendations based on each person's unique biology and health situation. And the fourth P is participation, which is what each of us needs to do for our own health. All of this is not easy today.
John Hauber:Well, Ted, I took your advice the last time we spoke and you and I had mentioned a full-body MRI and I went and got one, and it actually was able to point out a few areas of concern, just little concern, moderate concern. So is that what we're talking about? We're talking about preventative right Find the disease before it gets to a point where it's hard to treat. And that's what I'm hearing you say, correctly, right?
Ted Teele:Exactly, and doing things like full-body MRIs and a lot of other screens. It should be routine, that's correct, but they're not today. Should be routine, that's correct, and, and, and, but they're not today.
John Hauber:So how do longevity communities in the future, or even the ones today, make it all easier?
Ted Teele:I'm still working on the world's first longevity community, right, but longevity communities will make it much easier by bringing everything people need into one convenient place, from advanced AI-based health assessments similar to what you did, but much more comprehensive to personalize programming. We'll create an ecosystem where residents can focus and other participants what I call non-resident members can focus on improving their health without logistical barriers. It's not just providing services. It's about simplifying access and creating a supportive environment where it's actually fun to get healthier. For example, the programming and longevity communities will include all the pillars of healthy aging described in my first white paper. Imagine walking into a community where you can seamlessly move from a cognitive improvement club session to a group fitness class, followed by a chef-prepared, health-focused lunch with friends, with all of the results tracked by rigorous science.
John Hauber:So why is rigorous science important?
Ted Teele:Well, let's look at it from two perspectives. From the participant's perspective, it can highlight progress or identify new health issues that need to be addressed. If you're looking at your biology every six months, you can find issues that crop up that you can address. And from the community's perspective, it will enable the community to prove that it's enhancing cognitive skills and improving health. It's now possible, as you know, to assess someone's biological age, so it will be possible to measure health improvements by looking at how somebody's biological age changes every six months or so.
Ted Teele:Scientific Wellness they did an experiment on a program with about 4,000 people where the women actually aged backwards when they were participating according to their biological age, and the men perhaps they weren't as good at following recommendations. They continued to age, but at a much slower rate. For every chronological year that they participated in the program, their biological age increased only three months. The women actually went backwards six months. You know you think about this. Senior living providers have invested probably hundreds of millions of dollars in wellness programming but have never been able to prove the health benefits. Scientific wellness-based programming can change that and it's very important to change it.
John Hauber:I agree. So how does technology fit in?
Ted Teele:So the Longevity Club technology will tie it all together. Each member will receive personalized recommendations through an app that tracks their progress and keeps them motivated, and the AI-based app will also be able to answer health-related questions based on the member's unique biology and health history. In other words, you just don't have to go to ChatGPT and ask a general question about how to deal with heart disease or whatever you have question about how to deal with heart disease or whatever you have pre-diabetes or whatever you have. The app will know your situation and be able to answer questions based on that. The app will also use gamification to make it more fun, like earning points for meeting activity goals. Having groups compete against other groups provide reminders for activities that you are going to be interested in based on your personalized recommendation. This makes following a personalized wellness plan simple and fun. The technology will also foster a community by encouraging group participation, which enhances accountability and enjoyment.
John Hauber:All right, ted. Where's the fun?
Ted Teele:Well, that is the question, because right now you could do all these things by yourself, or most of them. It's not easy, it's hard logistically, but the fun comes from going through the programming with your friends. At the longevity community We'll create clubs around certain healthy programming, like the Polar Bear Club for cold plunges, which are so good for you from a biochemical perspective, but everybody dreads it perspective. But everybody dreads it. But in Scandinavia they do something like that where they all jump into the Baltic Sea together and it's a ritual. The longevity community will have the polar bear clubs and will have the brain game clubs for cognitive improvement, making it fun, and it'll make it easy to invite people to join your club and whole social events will be easy to make and build friendships. In other words, the longevity community is a perfect application of the community concept which senior living has been doing. But this takes it to the next step.
John Hauber:Well sounds great. As you know, ted, you and I have talked over the years about biological age and real age and, as you know, I'm 57 years old and I'm biologically 48 years old, based on my testing. Do I really have to live at a senior community to participate in the programming?
Ted Teele:Well, I think for somebody your age, you know there's a, you know I see there being two kinds of longevity communities. One is for the 75 and older group, that kind of where you have the life plan communities for that age cohort, but then there'll be a 55 plus longevity community that you might be interested in because of the fellowship. You know, 38% of baby boomers are not married, for example, and it's a great way to make friends, maybe meet your next partner, but it's much more fun when you do it with other people. You and I are friends. We trade notes all the time, but it's still hard today. Longevity communities, the fellowship, the group activities, the technology having it all in one place will make it easier. Is it absolutely necessary?
John Hauber:No, it may not be necessary, but what I envision is that if someone wants to participate in the longevity community and I was an operator of a senior living community the more people that come in to participate in activities or in health and wellness that are non-residents these would become my future residents, correct?
Ted Teele:Right, that's an excellent point. So longevity communities will be structured as clubs with resident members and non-resident members. So this is very attractive from a business model perspective because A the world's first longevity community and others are going to be able to get a higher per month average revenue than they otherwise would, because they're unique and compelling and what's the value of delaying or preventing Alzheimer's, for example? But you also have non-resident members. That would contribute significant revenue for the community and, as you alluded, would create a pipeline for new residents. So it's kind of the best of both worlds Having the residents brings in a lot of revenue, but also the people that don't live there, that senior living and active adult communities today don't get much revenue at all from people that don't live there.
John Hauber:Very cool, so let's pivot. Okay, so tell us about your new white paper on how senior living providers can attract more baby boomers.
Ted Teele:As you know, senior living has a significant challenge. 90% of seniors, according to a Place for Moms survey, say they never want to live in a senior living community. In a senior living community which, if you have a product which senior living does that, 90% of your target market say that they never want to use your product. That's a problem. That's a branding problem that the whole industry suffers from, and I'm sure you've heard everybody listening to this call probably is either experienced personally or they've heard stories where somebody comes and says my mom really ought to live in one of your communities but she doesn't want to. And when I've talked to people about this, many of them have said I don't want to live there because that's the place you go to die, or God's waiting room. I've heard that. So the longevity community concept is a way to transform the negative branding that's really difficult to change of the place you go to die to a positive branding is the place you go to enhance your cognitive skills and live healthier, happier and longer. Now, obviously, to do that, you can't just change your website, you have to change your product as well. So when I've talked to people about the longevity community concept, there's a lot of interest. But some of my clients in senior living have asked me how do I get from here to there in a more gradual way than going all in on saying, hey, tomorrow we're going to become a longevity community, we're going to make the big jump and do that. So a lot of people really liked it, make incremental changes and so, thinking about that, that led me to write the second white paper, which focuses on actionable strategies for senior living providers to make the transition to longevity communities in a step-by-step basis where you can essentially call it an experiment. One big idea that I highlighted is of a cognitive improvement club based on scientific wellness as the low-hanging fruit for providers who want to see high ROI while improving resident satisfaction and occupancy rates.
Ted Teele:If you saw the TV program the man on the Inside, there was a telling scene where one of the residents was talking to Ted Danson and he pointed to the memory care wing and he said that's where none of us want to go right. There's a lot of concern, you know, in senior living. If you go to somebody in senior living and say, tell them I'm going to help you live a year, you go to somebody in senior living and say, tell them I'm going to help you live a year. That's not going to be very inspiring to them, but if you can tell them that you can help delay or prevent dementia or if they don't have the kind of issues with cognitive skills, you can help them improve their memory and their cognitive skills, that's motivating and their cognitive skills that's motivating.
Ted Teele:And there's a lot of evidence now that dementia can be delayed, slowed or even reversed in some cases, although obviously if you have Alzheimer's and you're at the late stages, you know that's not what I'm talking about here. But as with all diseases, it will make a huge difference if you identify risk factors earlier, and that's part of the Cognitive Improvement Club will do that. But so Cognitive Improvement Clubs can enhance mental acuity, memory and focus for all participants, whether they have existing cognitive challenges or not and do that in a way with a supportive group to make it a lot more fun.
John Hauber:And this directly ties into the core mission of longevity communities that you've told me about, and that's helping people thrive, not just age.
John Hauber:Correct, that's exactly right. So why do you believe these programs offer such a high ROI?
Ted Teele:Well, first, unless a community is 100% occupancy, there's lost revenue that can be recouped by offering a more compelling product to your target market. So even communities with 90% occupancy can be leaving a million or more on the table. If you could imagine when you're talking to a prospect and you're a life plan community and the prospect is looking at four or five other places and you're able to say we make it easy and fun for you to improve your cognitive skills, would that be something that you're interested in? Many people not everybody, of course, but many people would be interested in that and you can fill those empty apartments.
Ted Teele:Second, as I mentioned before, there's an opportunity for new revenue sources from non-resident members. So if you set up one of these clubs, then you could make it available to people in the surrounding community and it can layer right on top of your existing life plan community. You don't need to transform it into a longevity community that is going to do everything that I talked about earlier. So the enhanced product would also likely lead to lowering the average age of admission and increasing the average length of stay, both of which, as you know, are significant operating metrics, and it probably will be able to increase the percentage of new residents that are independent living as opposed to assisted living, which also would increase the average length of stay.
John Hauber:So, Ted, can you walk us through how a cognitive improvement program might work in practice?
Ted Teele:Absolutely, and my second white paper goes into this in a lot of detail, but it begins with a health assessment specifically looking at cognitive health risk factors. I'll just give you an example If you have elevated homocysteine, which they never check, but if you have elevated your homocysteine, your risk of getting Alzheimer's is higher and that is actionable. By taking a supplement you can lower your homocysteine. So part of the health assessment is involving blood work plus a lifestyle questionnaire. Involving blood work plus a lifestyle questionnaire Based on the results, we can create what they call a digital twin, and the digital twin is essentially a simulation where you could actually calculate the mean time to dementia and you can go to somebody and say do you realize, if you change this, for example smoking, or if you can help somebody sleep better, that can push out your mean time to dementia in a graphically understandable way. So the health assessment is critical and, of course, based on that, just like with the scientific wellness. The third P is personalized recommendations, including dietary changes. For example, if you're low on omega-3 or vitamin D3 or vitamin B12, those are also risk factors that you can improve with dietary changes.
Ted Teele:And another big part of it is cognitive exercises Every single day I do. First thing in the morning I do a brain stretch using a product called Brain HQ. And actually there's a Tom Brady. He won three Super Bowls early in his career and then he went 10 years without winning a Super Bowl most people don't remember that and he was starting to think that maybe my cognitive skills are declining, and if you're a quarterback in the NFL, you have to make really quick decisions. And so he started using brain HQ and went on to win four more Super Bowls, including at the age of 43, where he was five years older than anybody else had ever been to win a Super Bowl, and he felt that, even though his physical skills had clearly declined by the 45 or whatever he was, when he retired he felt his mental acuity was as sharp as ever.
Ted Teele:And so you can do brain training and certainly that would be part of the program along with physical activity. Aerobic exercise is actually really good for cognitive health as well. To make it engaging, just like in the longevity communities, we'll incorporate gamification group activities. Imagine residents attending a brain training session together or a brain stretch, you might call it followed by a healthy ketogenic meal, Because you know the ketone bodies are really good for cognitive health and a lively discussion, the sense of community and fun amplifies the effectiveness of these programs, and one of the great things about this whole thing is it is not easy. You can go out into the community, you can get your full body MRI, you can go to a gym, but there aren't a whole lot of brain training programs available to people in this country, and certainly not programs that use scientific wellness. And again, the big advantage to the senior living community that implements this is, if you do it in a rigorous, scientific way, you can prove that it's working and then you can talk about it.
John Hauber:Well, it sounds fantastic and, as you know, part of bringing residents and non-residents into your community is sales and marketing. So how does marketing play in the success of these initiatives?
Ted Teele:Well, that's very important and thanks for bringing it up Again. Marketing is critical. Some people think, okay, we just have a program, but you also have to change the branding to reflect that. You need to proactively communicate the benefits of the cognitive improvement club or the longevity community, potential residents in their family, including the adult children, who are often major influencers or the decision makers, and it's a great thing to be talking about. If you're a salesperson in a senior living or life plan community where you can actually talk about this program that you're doing, you know it will really help your sales process. It will really help your sales process. But, as I mentioned earlier, having the rigorous science behind it and highlighting the scientifically validated benefits and the value of the group participation can shift perceptions of senior living entirely.
John Hauber:I agree. On a related topic. You mentioned in your second white paper that cognitive improvement clubs could help turn around underperforming communities. Can you elaborate?
Ted Teele:Yeah well first thing, john, you provide a very valuable service in terms of helping people that are looking to do acquisitions in the senior living area not just this podcast, but your activities with Haven and I'm very impressed with what you do.
Ted Teele:But there's a lot of people looking to acquire underperforming assets in senior living and once you acquire it, certainly you can make changes in operational efficiency and you can spend a lot of money on renovations, and that's important too. But if you implement a cognitive improvement club, you can add a compelling new capability not typically available elsewhere in the community, and so that can help occupancy and improve satisfaction, and those two factors are huge in terms of turning it around. So the idea is someone could buy a community, a company, or take over, maybe from a real estate investment trust, a portfolio of underperforming communities or even whether it could be assisted living, life plan, memory care, but you could take over and you could layer over a program like this as a way to turn it around. That's the idea that it could be. As you could put that and I'm sure people will do that as part of their strategies is to implement something like this, and some of my clients are actually working on that right now.
John Hauber:Cool. So before we wrap up, is there one key message you would like to leave with senior living providers or the investors in our community that are thinking about becoming senior living providers?
Ted Teele:I think we all know and you hear about it all the time that senior living needs to change to attract and inspire baby boomers, and one of the points that I made is if 90% of the target market doesn't want the product senior living, the change has to be fundamental. And at the same time, there's this major trend in society around longevity. Of dollars are being spent in that area and all of the scientific developments over the last 20 years have made the idea of scientific wellness possible. So if you believe all that, then the future of senior living lies in embracing scientific wellness and the longevity community concepts. And if you're interested in brainstorming enough to participate and profit from this transformation, I would love to talk to you.
John Hauber:Well, ted. Once again, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your vision For our listeners. We'll link to Ted's white papers in the show notes. Be sure to check them out for more insights, and if you wish to reach out to him, we've got a link down below to his personal LinkedIn page and to the longevity community consultants page. Ted, it's always a pleasure.
Ted Teele:Thanks, john. You and I have been talking regularly over the last 15 months and trading notes and you're a real innovator in this longevity area and I've really enjoyed our discussions and I'm really looking forward to continuing those discussions but also updating you through this podcast on our progress in the future.
John Hauber:Well, our community appreciates it. Thanks everyone for tuning in to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. Until next time, take care, thank you.
