By Leigh Ann Hubbard

This is part 1 in a six-part series about how to create a healthy building.

Can Your Senior Living Community Actually Promote Wellness?

Imagine it looking like this: As you sanitize, temp check, and social distance, your building has your back—working for you, unobtrusively, supporting your efforts, and saving you money.

It sounds like a futuristic dream. But it’s happening right now. Lumenant (a Senior Living Foresight partner) has developed a suite of healthy-building solutions that can help prevent illness, falls, and even sundown syndrome.

In addition to creating better lighting and cleaner air, their services usually decrease energy costs substantially. 

4 Ways to Have Healthier Buildings

These four things will give you healthier communities that will improve the lives of residents and team members while reducing operating costs.  

1. Modernized Lighting, To Reduce Falls and Create an Appealing Community

As people age, their eyes need better lighting to see properly. Are your interiors and exteriors well lit? If your community still uses incandescent bulbs or fluorescent lighting, chances are you’ve got some troublesome shadowy areas.

LED retrofits boost visibility while reducing energy costs. And bonus: A well-lit community looks more modern and inviting to prospective residents. Check out the difference in the before-and-after shot here.

2. Healthier Air, To Help Prevent Infection

Lumenant is really excited about bipolar ionization technology, which can be added to room-level air conditioning units or retrofitted to central HVAC systems. It strips most viruses, bacteria, and allergens from the air. Like the LED lighting, this is not only beneficial for residents but it’s a great selling point for your community—especially in the wake of COVID-19.

3. Circadian Lighting, To Support Sleep, Boost Immunity and Reduce Agitation

Lumenant’s circadian lighting systems change color temperature and brightness to create a natural cycle of day and night in your community. They’re whiter in the daytime and warmer in the evening. Here’s a time-lapse example.

“Because circadian lighting improves sleep so much, it also improves immune response,” says Jack Sterne, a principal at Lumenant. “There’s a direct link between sleep and the immune system.”

Lumenant can program different wake times for different rooms, according to resident preference. 

4. Smart Heating/Cooling, To Support Comfort While Saving Electricity

You don’t want your residents to be too hot or cold, but you’d also like to reduce electricity bills. Lumenant solves this issue with high-tech thermostat systems.

Using both a motion sensor and a thermal sensor, the thermostat can tell whether someone is in the room. When the room is unoccupied, the system cycles down the heating or air conditioning.

Stay Tuned For More

In the next article in this series, we’ll go into more detail about how these healthy-building upgrades could also save you money. Meanwhile, to get a full evaluation of your community—for free—contact Lumenant.

What are you doing to improve the health of your communities?