Tony Galvan

Before most residents even move in to Monarch Landing, they are aware of our emphasis on health and well-being. It’s an important part of our culture. This philosophy is being strengthened by a new program that we’ve recently introduced, called Lifestyle and Health Services. 

This program is an initiative of Life Care Services (LCS), our management company. It was developed to provide a comprehensive model for all of LCS’s senior care communities and is compatible with Monarch Landing’s commitment to wellness. Nine distinct dimensions of health and wellness have been identified: physical, nutritional, social, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, vocational, environmental and health services.  Our programs, services, events and activities at Monarch Landing support these dimensions.

What identifying the dimensions of health and wellness permits us to do is to define which of our programs and activities fall under each of the various dimensions, describe what each dimension means, and determine whether more or different programming is needed to further develop certain areas. The result is that we’re more purposeful and robust in our programming and more mindful of the crossover among our various offerings into several dimensions. 

During Active Aging Week last fall, we intentionally scheduled activities that addressed several of our identified dimensions of wellness. For instance, professors from North Central College presented Back in Tune with Geometry which represented intellectual wellness; held a photography nature walk in a neighboring forest preserve which represented environmental health; and held our Annual Healthy Living Expo which related to all aspects of health. 

What is also purposeful about the Lifestyle and Health Services program is the branding that we’re attaching to it with consistent use of logos representing each health and wellness dimension, and media bearing uniform messages and images.  We announced the program to our residents and articulated the identified dimensions and examples of programs supporting each.  Over the past months, our residents are increasingly recognizing and understanding these and soon, will realize that every week at Monarch Landing is an active aging week.

Tony Galvan is the wellness manager at Monarch Landing in Naperville, IL, a continuing care retirement community. Monarch Landing is owned by Senior Care Development and managed by Life Care Services.