Residents at Balfour Senior Living in Louisville have an unusual perk alongside the coffee bar and group activities — easy access to medical research, if they choose to participate.
The community and the University of Colorado’s Anschutz and Boulder campuses have partnered on the first “living lab” in the state. The model brings existing health studies to retirement communities and gives residents a say in future research.
Older people are underrepresented in medical research, and bringing studies to them makes it more feasible to take part, said Jodi Waterhouse, director of strategic partnerships and programs at the CU Anschutz Multidisciplinary Center on Aging.
The underrepresentation is a particular problem because older people typically have a greater need for new medications and therapies.
Roughly three-fifths of people over 65 reported high blood pressure, half had high cholesterol, one-quarter had a history of cancer and one-fifth had diabetes as of 2022, according to the federal Administration for Community Living. About one-third said they had a disability, most commonly difficulty walking or climbing stairs.
Studying how treatments perform in older people is also important because they are at an increased risk for some medication side effects, such as grogginess and confusion. The hazards compound when people take multiple drugs that could interact poorly. As of 2016, about 84% of people between 60 and 79 used at least one prescription drug, and 35% used five or more, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The living lab at Balfour is a first step toward including older people, but ultimately the goal is to involve more communities, whether by setting up labs there or conducting “research road shows,” where scientists visit retirement communities and long-term-care facilities for a day and do surveys or basic tests with interested residents, Waterhouse said.
As more residents get the option to participate, researchers will be able to explore how their ideas work in older people in different parts of the state and with varying socioeconomic levels and care needs, she said.
Fifteen Balfour residents are on the committee that decides which studies are a good fit. Organizers aren’t sure how many of the roughly 400 people living on the Louisville campus will ultimately opt to take part in research.
As part of the partnership, Balfour set aside a small apartment in its independent living building for the studies, where participants can go over the risks and benefits of taking part and do some basic procedures, such as blood draws. People who aren’t residents on its campus can also participate there.
Residents and some staff members formed an advisory council that identifies health priorities and assesses whether proposed studies are a good fit before allowing researchers to recruit.
Wendell Bell, a member of the council, said medical studies typically excluded people over 85, but plenty of his fellow residents are active and mentally sharp into their 90s. In addition, many of them are highly educated and can use their life experiences to improve research, he said.
“Do you really want to exclude those 90-year-olds?” he said.
As of 2022, about 6.5 million Americans were 85 or older, and by 2040, that age group is expected to grow to about 13.7 million people, according to the Administration for Community Living.
Anne Duckett, another member of the council, described the research process as a way for residents to feel “purpose” and to give back to the broader community. Combining residents’ and the researchers’ experiences is like a chemical reaction that can produce something greater than the inputs, she said.
It also could help fight stereotypes about older people’s abilities, she said.
“Just as every kindergartener performs differently, every person who is 85 years old performs differently,” she said.
And, of course, the studies might directly benefit the participants and people like them, Bell said.
“In the long run, you hope that they come up with something that’s important to people our age and older,” he said.
So far, the council has signed off on two projects: one testing whether treating hearing loss can help lower blood pressure, and the other trying electrical stimulation to increase walking speed.
Slow walking isn’t just an inconvenience; it also increases a person’s risk of falls, which are a major cause of injury and death for older people, Waterhouse said. About 41,000 people over 65 died from falls in 2023, exceeding breast cancer deaths in that group.
Bell said he tried to sign up for the blood pressure study, but the intake screening found his wasn’t high enough to qualify. Duckett said neither of the current studies was a fit for her.
For now, CU researchers are pitching existing projects that appear to fit with residents’ priorities, but over time, they’ll move toward co-creating studies, Waterhouse said.
“Eventually, they might be able to write papers together,” she said. “We’ve done research in a certain way for so many years. This is a way to think outside the box.”
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