Brain Health That Sells Senior Living

We talk with Ted Teele about why brain health is now the biggest aging concern and why that reality is reshaping what people expect from senior living. We break down Brain Boosters, a science-informed cognitive wellness club that uses assessment, personalization, and social accountability to help residents stay sharp and help operators stand out.

• brain health as the top driver of senior living choice
• scientific wellness vs traditional wellness programming
• the four Ps predict prevent personalize participation
• evidence from the U.S. POINTER Study and why structure matters
• Brain Boosters as a practical first step toward longevity communities
• multivariable assessment using cognitive testing lifestyle inputs and biomarkers
• BrainHQ adaptive brain training and why it differs from puzzles
• VR pilots like MindGlow as an emerging tool
• gamification and team accountability to improve adherence
• operator upside through differentiation occupancy and longer length of stay

Ted Teele
CEO, BrainBoosters of America
BrainBoostersofAmerica.com
CEO, Longevity Community Consultants
LongevityCommunityConsultants.com
 

Transcript

Welcome And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 0:02

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 haven Senior Investors.com. This podcast doesn't exist without you and our community. Thank you for listening and reach out to us at any time. Welcome back to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. I'm your host, John Haubert. Today's guest is someone many of our listeners already know. Ted Till is the CEO of Brain Boosters of America and the CEO of Longevity Community Consultants. Earlier in his career, Ted was the CEO of Touchdown, a resident engagement technology company now used in over 3,000 senior living communities. Prior to that, he had a long and successful career as a CEO and is the is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School. Ted's interest in longevity science became personal in 2019 when he underwent quintuple bypass surgery. That experience led him to immerse himself in the science of longevity and aging. And since then, he's been working with providers across the country on a new model called longevity communities. Ted, your prior episodes were our most downloaded ever. Welcome back. Thanks, John.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

It's great to be back. I really enjoy these conversations. It's always fun connecting with someone who shares such a strong interest in longevity science.

Brain Boosters Cognitive Wellness Club

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Well, last time we talked about longevity communities and how senior living needs to evolve to attract baby boomers. Today, I want us to focus on something very practical that you're building. Before we dive in, what is Brain Boosters?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Great question, John. Brain Boosters is a science-informed cognitive wellness club designed for senior living communities. The goal is to make it easier and more enjoyable for older adults to enhance their cognitive skills and support long-term brain health. And we're building it using the framework of scientific wellness with an emphasis on personalization, participation, and measurement.

Why Brain Health Tops The List

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Okay, Ted, let's step back for a moment. Why is brain health such a big focus right now?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

It's huge and it's backed by data. A study by Love and Company, who surveyed about 1,600 people last year who were interested in seeing your living, found that brain health was the number one concern related to aging. They gave them eight concerns and they asked them to rank them in brain health, essentially Alzheimer's, dementia, and cognitive decline was the number one concern they expressed. And even more striking, 94% said that a strong brain health program would positively influence their decision to move into a community. Now, not all of them were said highly influenced, but it spread between that 94%. But all those people said that if they looked at a community with a strong brain health program, they'd be more likely to move in. And this is where I think one of the big insights comes in. Brain health has become the number one concern for older adults, and communities that are interested will have a major competitive advantage.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, Ted, that brings up a you know more of a personal side of my life, and that is my father had dementia. He started having brain issues when started probably when he was 76. And ultimately he succumbed uh to older age and and had dementia. Uh, but also um my mom's husband had had uh dementia, like Bruce Willis's dementia, and and we put him into a memory care community, and they didn't have this type of brain enhancements. And so what you just said in terms of brain health has become the number one concern for older adults. That's a powerful statement. Why do you think this is so top of mind?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

By the way, I'm very sorry about your family situation, and I have something in my family as well, yeah, and most people can tell you a story, and it's sad. The fact is that you know dementia is virtually an epidemic over once people get over 80. But because cognitive decline affects independence, identity, and quality of life in a very profound way, it means that brain health is top of mind for people that are at the age for a senior living. And I think there's also a growing awareness that lifestyle matters, that what we do every day can influence how we age cognitively, which leads directly into the subject of scientific wellness.

Scientific Wellness Four Ps Framework

SPEAKER_00 5:55

All right, so let's go there. What is scientific wellness and how is it different from traditional wellness programming?

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Another great question. Traditional wellness programming tends to focus on activities, fitness classes, social events, educational sessions. Those are all valuable, but they're generally not measured or personalized in a rigorous way. Scientific wellness approach, it's based on the work of two brilliant scientists, Dr. Leroy Hood and Dr. Nathan Price, at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, and it's built around four principles. The first one, and they're all four P's, predict disease before it becomes clinically identifiable. Once you can predict it, the second P is to prevent the disease before it ever occurs. And nowadays you can see a lot of these diseases, like Alzheimer's, coming years in advance if you're looking for it. The third P is personalized, personalized recommendations based on each person's unique biology and lifestyle. And the fourth is participation, which is what each of us needs to do for our own health. So the key shift is this the big shift is moving from general wellness programming to measurable, personalized health improvement based on scientific wellness. We're now able to use data, including biomarkers, cognitive testing, and lifestyle inputs to better understand risk and track changes over time.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

So, Ted, this is really about bringing science and data into wellness generally, and cognitive health specifically.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Exactly. And we need to be thoughtful here. There are no guarantees when it comes to cognitive health, but there is growing evidence that structured lifestyle programs can help support cognitive function.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So is that where the I think it's called the U.S. Pointer Study comes in?

POINTER Study Proof And Coaching

SPEAKER_01 8:29

That's correct. There was a similar study a few years earlier in Finland called the Finger Study. So they they created a study in the U.S. called the Pointer Study, so finger pointer, and that's a key piece of evidence. The U.S. Pointer Study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2025, followed over 2,000 older adults for two years at risk for cognitive decline. It compared a structured multi-domain program, including coaching on exercise diet, cognitive training, and social engagement with a self-guided approach. The structured program showed, on average, greater cognitive benefit. Now, again, we should be careful not to overstate this, but it's encouraging and it supports the idea that structured science-informed lifestyle program difference.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

So you've actually brought someone onto your team who worked on that study. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yes, and we're very excited about it. Farma Benavides, who's now part of the Brain Boosters team, was a coach in the U.S. Pointer study for five years. She worked with directly with more than 100 participants to help them change their habits and stay engaged with the program. So she brings real-world expertise in turning theory into sustained behavioral change. Carmen is our director of brain health navigation.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Okay, so when you when you say in our audience, are you going to want to hear this right away because you just said uh that she works with participants to help them change their habits. What what are those habits? What would what what would what is she trying to change?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Well, it's diet, exercise, you know, education, you know, so it's it's a a lot of different things, but diet and exercise is very important. They also did brain games, and like we can talk about that a little later.

A Practical Starting Point For Operators

SPEAKER_00 10:45

So let's connect this back to senior living. If I'm an operator listening to this, what's the practical first step?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Well, John, this is where brain boosters comes in. What I'd call low-hanging fruit. Over the last couple of years, many providers have asked me, how do we start moving towards scientific wellness-based longevity communities without a massive and expensive transformation? And a cognitive wellness club is a practical, high-impact entry point. I frame it this way: senior living today doesn't just have a branding problem, it has a product problem that needs to be addressed. When roughly 90% of seniors say they don't want to move into senior living, according to a study by a place for mom, that's not just perception. It reflects a mismatch between the current senior living offering and what older adults really value for the last years of their lives. And if senior living doesn't address that, it's going to get worse because the baby boomers are now coming into that age group. So brain health is something they deeply care about, and brain boosters directly addresses that.

Assessments Then BrainHQ And VR

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Okay, so how does brain boosters actually work? Let's get down to that.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

So there are a few core components. Before we even get to interventions, brain boosters starts with something more foundational. What we call multivariable assessment. The idea is simple and powerful. If you want to improve cognitive health, you need to understand what's actually driving it for each individual. So rather than a one-size-all, look across multiple domains, cognitive performance, lifestyle factors, and biomarkers to create a more complete picture. To support that, we're partnering with Centered Care's Medical Practice, where Rocky Samuel serves as chief medical officer. Rocky is the only person I know who has graduated from both Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School. And he spent his career working at the intersection of clinical care, data, and system design with a strong focus on more personalized outcomes driving health care. And he has a lot of senior living experience. So really excited to be working with him. So this isn't just programming, this isn't just activities. It's about building a foundation for measuring, understanding, and improving cognitive health over time.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Well, that makes a lot of sense. Starting with assessment before jumping into solutions. So once you have that baseline, what are some of the key interventions you're introducing?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

One of the core interventions is brain training using brain HQ. Brain HQ is grounded in what they call neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize and strengthen itself through targeted challenges even later in life. Which I do brain HQ every day, first thing in the morning for 10 minutes, and it's amazing. Brain HQ uses adaptive, evidence-based exercises that continuously adjust difficulty to keep each person in that optimal zone of challenge while targeting key functions like processing speed, attention, memory precision, and executive control. And that adjustment is really important because, for example, if you do crossword puzzles, they don't adjust based on how well you're doing. Whereas if you're with brain HQ, if you get questions wrong, they make it easier. If you get questions right, they make it harder to get you in that optimal zone of challenge for where your brain is on any given day. And there's a great real-world example that brings this to life. Tom Brady won four Super Bowls early in his career. And then most people don't remember this, but he went 10 years without winning a fifth Super Bowl. As he got older, he became concerned that his processing speed, cognitive processing speed, which is so critical for a quarterback, might be declining. So he started using brain HQ every day as part of his routine. He mentions that in his book. He went on to win three more Super Bowls, including one at the age of 43, making him the oldest quarterback ever by five years. And when he retired, his physical abilities were not where they once were. I went to his last game. But he felt his mental abilities were as good as they were in his entire career. And brain HQ had a big part of that. Now, obviously, our residents are trying to win championships, but they are trying to stay sharp, make good decisions, and maintain independence for as long as possible. And importantly, the brain HQ approach is supported by substantial research, hundreds of studies, including the Pointer study, which uh used it. And then there was the NIH-funded active trial, which showed that this type of training can lead to durable improvements in cognitive performance and everyday function, which is what it's all about. So again, this isn't about games, it's about systematically strengthening the brain in ways that matter in real life.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

So, Ted, I understand that you are also looking at VR, virtual reality, as part of your brain training. Uh, explain that to our audience.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Well, we're also partnering, uh piloting, excuse me, a new virtual reality product called Mind Glow as another way to potentially stimulate cognitive health. The idea is to create immersive experiences that engage multiple brain systems at once, kind of exercising the neurons in your brain, including attention, memory, and spatial processing in a way that's novel, engaging, and potentially, hopefully, beneficial. Now we're approaching this pilot uh with appropriate humility because it is new, but we're excited about the potential of VR as another tool in the cognitive health toolkit.

Gamification Social Teams And Education

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So, as you know, a lot of wellness programs sound good in theory, but adherence is the hard part. How are you making brain boosters fun and social enough that people actually want to stick with it?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Well, that's a great question because if you don't make it fun and enjoyable, people aren't going to want to do it. Right? So, uh, and that's one of the things that makes brain boosters different. A core differentiator is our use of gamification and team-based accountability to transform cognitive health from a solitary task into a motivating, socially rich experience. One way I like to describe it is you get imagine the different teams, the wise owls and the neuroneerds competing for the coveted Neurostar Cup. That simple idea captures a lot of what we're trying to do. Members are part of small teams that meet regularly, creating a rhythm of friendly competition, shared goals, and mutual encouragement. Instead of doing this alone, they're part of a group that's rooting and having fun along the way. Teams are on points across multiple dimensions. Cognitive training like brain HQ, participation in VR sessions, lifestyle improvements, attendance, and engagement in broader community activities. All of those are measures of activity rather than actual brain improvement. That structure becomes a powerful behavioral engine. People stay more consistent, they push a little harder, and they celebrate progress together. And just as importantly, it drives real social connection. Members bond through learning, problem solving, humor, and shared success. And that sense of camaraderie reduces isolation and reinforces well-being, which, as we know, is itself a critical component of brain health. So brain boosters isn't something residents do, it's something they belong to. So where does education fit in? Brain health education is vital. So we help members understand things like the importance of sleep, and you asked this question earlier, and nutrition and exercise and stress, and how they all may influence brain health.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So, you know, I've been in the business in senior living for 11 years in many different areas, and one thing that stands out in senior living seems uniquely positioned to deliver this. So ethics, so senior living is the key to delivering your programs, correct? So that's the beauty of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

So now you have a situation where 90% of consumers, seniors, say they never want to live in senior living. But the community structure is so valuable because they already have built-in social networks, structured environment, they have wellness programs that can be adapted into this uh framework and support systems. So when you layer in a structured, science-informed, measurable program, you could potentially achieve much higher participation and adherence. And again, the goal would be to do much better than the pointer study because those were people that were living in the community. So they would have a coach, but they wouldn't be have anywhere near the support structure that they would get at a senior living community.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

So, Ted, who are these programs designed for?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Right now, our pilot programs, we have pilot programs under development that are focused on independent living residents in life plan communities, or CCRCs, but also living residents that are involved that live in AL slash. Memory care communities. But we absolutely hope to develop versions for memory care residents as well. So a different version of brain boosters depending on the level of acuity somebody has. That's an important part of the long-term vision. But those programs do need to be designed very carefully. So we're starting with IL and AL, learning from those pilots and evolving from there.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So let's talk about the business impact. Why should operators care about this?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

That's an important question. And there are three big reasons. The first one, everybody in Senior Living that I know really cares about the residents. We want to do a good job for residents. So resident outcomes is one reason why you should care. The goal is higher engagement, stronger social connection, improved quality of life. But second, and this is also vital, is market differentiation. If somebody is looking at four assisted living communities in one day, and you have the Brain Boosters program, and you can talk about that, you go show them the Brain Boosters Club, Club Room. That is something that really stands out. And third is growth and occupancy. Programs like Brain Boosters can improve the number of inquiries, it can improve inquiry to tour conversion, it can encourage move-ins, so a younger average age of admission and increase the average length of stay. And it all ties back to what we were talking about earlier, aligning the product with what people actually want.

Longevity Community Vision And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Well, Ted, you and I have what we've been friends for what, four years, three years, four years? And the reason the thing that brought us together was our our our love of the concept of longevity communities. So let's go back to that longevity communities. Let's talk about that real quick. Great, great.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Well, at a high level, we're transforming senior living from the place you go to die, as many people sadly perceive it to be, into the place where you go to live healthier, happier, and longer, uh, including with cognitive health. And that's the vision. And brain boosters is one of the most practical ways to start moving in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Well, as as before we got on this call together, uh, you know, you you saw my excitement as it related to uh you know building our first longevity and wellness community uh in Texas on 29 acres and being able to bring these programs to that community. And so you you know my excitement when it comes to building these communities and you know as quickly as we possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

You're a passionate guy, John, and I think that's really terrific. And we're we're all trying to live as healthy, happy, and longer ourselves. And so one of the advantages of having a brain boosters community uh club, and we call club because people belong to the club, right? But one of the advantages each anybody participating in is going to learn more about their own health, their own brain health.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Absolutely. So, Ted, this has been fantastic again. This is your third time on the show, and so truly appreciate uh the friendship that we have. And uh before we wrap up, where can people learn more about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Well, there's a couple of places, John. The first is my LinkedIn profile, and I add content regularly, so you just search for Ted Teal, and you can also visit the Brain Boosters website, uh www.brainboosters of America dot com. And you know, if you go to my LinkedIn profile, you can send me a direct message. You know, I'd be happy to talk with providers who are interested in exploring pilot programs.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

And and your last name is spelled T-E-E-L E. So Ted Teal, correct? Right. Lots of ease in my name. That says something. So any final thought you would like to leave listeners with.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Sure, I I just say this. I truly believe that the future of senior living, and in fact, the future of healthcare in America, will be built on scientific wellness, combining data, lifestyle science, and community. And the providers who start moving in that direction now are going to be very well positioned for that future.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Amen. Ted, always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Thanks, John. Amen. Right back to you. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Thank you, sir. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

You too.