Changing Aging

Parmly LifePointes, an Ecumen community in Chisago City, Minnesota, is embarking on a very cool new journey built upon successful aging.

Their new Vitalize! Wellness Centre, opening this fall , will have all the bells and whistles . . . TechnoGym weights and TechnoGym aerobic fitness equipment that digitally measure one’s personal progress, a warm-water lap pool, a warm water pool with a treadmill, herbal teas and great food, exercise rooms, massage, plus classrooms for lifelong learning that helps people explore, personalize and enhance dimensions of successful aging.  Oh, don’t let me forget the feng shui garden.

Patricia Montgomery, is the director of Vitalize!.  A former college swimmer and corporate wellness director, Patricia, who is about to conclude her masters degree in holistic health at the College of St. Catherine, knows all about exercise of the physical type, but what she and the folks at Parmly LifePointes are focused on goes far, far beyond.  As they look at wellness, they are going to be empowering people to empower themselves and exercise not just the physical parts of their being, but also the intellectual, vocational, social, spiritual and emotional parts.

Vitalize! will be the place where a 25-year-old certified nursing assistant (what a great asset this will be for Parmly employees) and an 85-year-old who might have a chronic condition and lives in assisted living or the nursing home, go to take greater control of their life and how they travel through it.

Vitalize! also will be open to the public.  This isn’t Ballys or Lifetime Fitness, though. This is a completely different animal built on taking control of your own wellness no matter your age or your physical ability.   And it’s built on the premise that aging is all about living . . .even at the end of life.