How do retirement communities build friendships and improve health?

Healthier, happier lives

“To put it bluntly, we have this happier, healthier value proposition hiding in plain sight in retirement communities,” Gannon said during the roundtable.

“They do a lot of heavy lifting for different sections of society in every suburb across the country, for federal, state and local governments as well as older Australian consumers.”

Roundtable participant Keyton CEO Nathan Cockerill highlighted retirement communities’ economies of scale on the health front, citing in-home care as an example.

“In home care providers spend 40 percent of their time traveling from one place to another. In a retirement village, you cut out travel time completely,” Cockerill said.

“If you look at the average size of a retirement village of around 100 homes, there is an opportunity to provide care for around 150 residents in one spot.”

RLC’s Gannon says eliminating duplication in transportation means investing in “more care per dollar for the actual consumer.”

“So, as the federal government grapples with the growing demand for home care services, we can actually help solve the problem by providing operator-driven care as well as consumer-driven care,” says Gannon.

“A community may decide that it wants to pool its funds.

“What that means for the Keyton community, for example, is that you can take pooled funding and invest it in a wonderful way for all sorts of amenities, like having healthcare professionals on site 24/7, as well as a broader range of services.”

While health savings are significant, Cockerill also noted the many other subtle social benefits that retirement living provides; These include facilities and reduced traffic flow around villages compared to other settlements. density urban environments.

Roundtable participants also discussed combating loneliness and highlighted the social connection that comes with living in a retirement community.

This debate comes at a time when the world is suffering from a loneliness epidemic, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO director-general Dr. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, high rates of social isolation and loneliness around the world have serious consequences for health and well-being.

Dr Ghebreyesus said at the launch of WHO’s Commission on Social Connection: “People who do not have strong enough social connections are at higher risk of stroke, anxiety, dementia, depression, suicide and more.”

Even more worrying, the WHO reports that lack of social connection carries a risk of premature death equivalent to, or even greater than, other better-known risk factors such as smoking, binge drinking, physical inactivity, obesity and air pollution.

Speaking at the roundtable, Hunter Aging Alliance co-founder and NSW Senior Australian of the Year 2024 Dr. John Ward said that when you ask older people how they want to live, they always say: “We want to live within our social network”.

“We want to live close to the facilities we use, such as doctors, shops, public transport and libraries,” Ward said.

The strength of the connection

Ward acknowledged that retirement villages were attractive to many people and that all the facilities, swimming pools and lawns and greenery looked nice in the brochures, but many older people he spoke to were not interested in the recreational assets in a village.

“The most important factor in terms of shelter and also in terms of reducing one’s sense of loneliness is relationships,” he said.

“The lives of almost all older people have improved. They paint, they play the piano, they read, they do Sudoku, they go out with friends and have coffee, and it all revolves around friendship,” Ward said.

“And this can happen even in a small village of, say, eight to 10 people, as long as there are some community facilities where people can come together.

Because facilities such as pools and community centers in large villages help establish social ties.

The challenge for retirement villages is maintaining that connection, he said.

“As people living in villages get older, they start to want to stay at home more and social connection decreases. They’re not going to the community centre, so it’s about finding the right balance. One way is to continue to bring new people to the village and thus maintain the vitality of the village,” Cockerill said.

Another option is to co-locate retirement villages with aged care facilities so people can move seamlessly from one to another, as well as near universities and city centres, creating opportunities for greater intergenerational connections.

To learn more, please visit: Keyton.