Senior living providers are taking aim at resident loneliness in their quest to evolve lifestyle and engagement efforts.
Operators in 2025 now rely on care and lifestyle staff while also increasing engagement with residents through interactive technology. Providers are also tailoring programming to fit residents’ specific interests, shared hobbies and passions. Technology is at the center of those efforts, according to Benchmark Senior Living Director of Community Engagement and Programming Melanie Barbieri.
“Technology is not a replacement for human connection, but as a valuable extension of it,” Barbieri told Senior Housing News. “Unlike social isolation, which can often be solved by proximity or scheduling, loneliness is deeply personal and emotional.”
Other senior living operators including Atria Senior Living, Sunrise Senior Living, United Church Homes, Mather, 12 Oaks Senior Living and Benchmark Senior Living are also retooling operations to combat social isolation and loneliness, an effort that has only increased following the Covid-19 pandemic and its challenges.
But the effort to reach older adults hasn’t stopped at rental senior living properties. Organizations including the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) work to reach older adults aging in place at home in their communities with increased effectiveness using new technology and personalized, adult day programming.
“Having a sustained, continuous relationship makes a huge difference in establishing trust where a person is more comfortable saying, ‘I need something more or something different,’ and being able to make an impact,” said National PACE Association CEO Shawn Bloom.
Loneliness trend lingers years after Covid-19
Senior living operators took precautions during the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic that included sequestering residents in their rooms to maintain minimal physical contact with other people. Although that helped delay or stop the spread of the disease, it led to more residents feeling socially isolated, depressed and anxious.
Five years and change since the start of the pandemic, senior living operators still have more work to do to reverse that trend.
In 2018, a little more than a quarter (27%) of older adults between the ages of 50 to 80 felt isolated. In 2020, that number increased to more than half, 56%, due to the restrictions of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a 2023 study by the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.
A 2022 U.S. News and World Report survey of 1,000 older adults 62 to 92 found they were lonely 41% of the time. In 2025, the company found that 44% feel lonely “sometimes or often,” even as the vast majority, 94%, held aging at home an “important goal.”
The 2023 University of Michigan national poll found a little more than one-third, 34%, of older adults in the 50 to 80 age group felt isolated over the past year, lower than what was reported in 2020 but greater than 2018. Also in 2023, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, under then-U.S. President Joe Biden, declared loneliness a public health epidemic.
Last year, more than a third of older adults in the age group felt lonely and nearly as many felt isolated, according to a review of six years of NPHA data by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
While older adults can be less lonely after moving into a senior living community, operators still are seeking new ways to reach current and new potential residents in order to meet the care mission of serving aging adults today. Challenges in reaching residents, encouraging engagement and identifying potential signs of isolation and loneliness remain.
“Consistent assignment of team members is pivotal to providing person-directed care,” said United Church Homes Director of Customer Experience Amy Kotterman. “The more the staff know the residents, including their likes, preferences and routines, the better they can meet their needs.”
Using tech to improve loneliness
In 2025, senior living operators are wielding an increasing array of data insights to improve resident care, programming and engagement and combat social isolation.
“Our industry sometimes struggles to measure the impact of engagement and wellness within the community, relying heavily on attendance data to measure success when in fact you can be present without feeling engaged,” said Mather Associate Vice President of Resident Engagement Caroline Edasis.
While using smart technology like Amazon’s Alexa in resident rooms isn’t new, it’s a helpful tool for Mather at its latest life plan community, The Mather, in Tysons, Virginia. There, residents can use the device to learn about daily events and programming or sign up and request a range of community group announcements, Edasis said.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based Benchmark virtual reality (VR) headsets to facilitate discussions and storytelling among residents with dementia or sensory limitations, according to Barbieri.
Interactive smartphone and tablet applications have helped families stay more connected with long distance senior living residents from afar, helping to improve resident loneliness, 12 Oaks Senior Living Vice President Eilleen Aldridge told SHN.
Through technology partners, providers told SHN they were able to improve social engagement and bring together residents through “friend matching,” or surveying residents to find or establish interest groups.
With the help of a national partnership, PACE centers across the country have expanded the use of technology to engage with older adults living at home that also interact with PACE programming virtually, Bloom said. The tablets offer a variety of activities and allows staff to check-in on residents for wellness updates.
“I don’t think we fully realize the opportunities that technology provides us to meet individual care needs and also social and emotional well-being,” Bloom added.
Community service events also help residents build social connections and serve as a way residents form new bonds over shared interests or causes.
Mather communities choose causes residents can rally around including environmentalism, youth literacy and children in the foster system through its “wellness citizenship” initiative, Edasis said.
At 12 Oaks communities, volunteer drives have helped build social connections and provide an outlet for older adults who want to improve their local communities.
Staffing consistency, coordination in operations both critical in fighting loneliness
has expanded the role since 2020
McLean, Virginia-based Sunrise Senior Living has expanded the role of life enrichment managers since 2020 to help reach more residents at risk of social isolation and loneliness, according to Sunrise Vice President of Hospitality Caitlin Rogers.
This change was particularly effective in memory care neighborhoods, bringing one-to-one staff and resident engagement, along with small groups, to improve feelings of isolation, Rogers noted. Sunrise also rolled out new structured lifestyle assessments to help staff better understand resident preferences and social needs.
That also meant a new “broad variety” of daily engagement opportunities for residents, from walking clubs and discussion groups to armchair travel or language learning all guided by resident input, Rogers said.
“We’re uniquely positioned to address the loneliness epidemic, and we see our role as not just providing activities, but fostering purpose, inclusion and community every day,” Rogers added.
Louisville, Kentucky-based Atria Senior Living trains all staff on recognizing the signs of loneliness, while encouraging staff to build relationships with residents, charging community-level directors to lead in developing and discovering resident interests or engagement, according to Atria Vice President of Resident Engagement Justin Guest.
“It’s not just a caregiver who is responsible for recognizing loneliness, it’s everyone and we hear things from our wait staff, maintenance technicians,” Guest said. “They get to know the residents and they’re coming to our care teams and flagging any early warning signs.”
Increasing training appears to be a common trend in equipping all staff with the tools needed to identify residents that could be more isolated and potentially lonely. This was true at Benchmark communities, which recently added a full-day training exercise around programming and engagement called “Energy Matters,” Barbieri said.
Mather also added more comprehensive training on the company’s wellness and engagement platforms for staff in recent years. This training exists to improve hospitality, wellness and inclusion efforts at all Mather communities, Edasis said.
At 12 Oaks communities, team leaders focus on emotional intelligence training of staff, having leaders and frontline staff home in on attunement to identify subtle signs of emotional needs, including loneliness or social isolation, Aldridge said. Thanks to insights from a tech partner’s programming tool, 12 Oaks is able to identify attendance issues and intervene accordingly.
“This measure tells us what percent of our residents we have planned for in our calendar and who we are missing,” Aldridge said. “Lead measures like this give us an opportunity to get in front of the loneliness curve.”
Investing in ‘personalization and consistency’
Social connectivity and loneliness are emotional issues older adults face, and operators must meet these challenges by investing in “personalization and consistency” in programming and lifestyle or wellness engagement efforts, Rogers said.
“It requires flexible, resident-centered engagement models that reflect personal interests, histories, and routines,” Rogers added. “At the same time, it’s crucial to ensure teams have the infrastructure, tools, and training needed to implement this consistently across communities.”
Sometimes improving programming and engagement simply means listening to residents, Kotterman said.
“The more residents feel connected and experience ‘purpose’ within the community, the more actively involved they will be in community life,” Kotterman said.
