Bea Lipsky shuffled into her wellness coach’s office one morningthis fall and parked her walker by the wall. Lipsky, 89, had had atrying year, enduring a hernia operation and two emergency roomvisits for heart problems. She’s losing her hearing, andrecently gave up her dream of riding in a hot air balloon for her90th birthday.

That day, though, she was filled with pride: She told her coachshe’d achieved her goals for the year, including attending hergrandson’s wedding in China.

Lipsky spent two months training, doing leg curls and riding astationary bicycle, to build up the strength to make it through a10-day trip to China, accompanied by an aide. “It was absolutelydivine,” she told coach Susan Flashner-Fineman, who works at theOrchard Cove retirement community in Canton, Mass., where Lipskyhas lived for the past four years.

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Lipsky’s check-ins with Flashner-Fineman are part of a well­ness coaching program, Vitalize 360, thatOrchard Cove start­ed eight years ago in collaboration with theKendal nonprofit senior living organization in Pennsylvania.

When seniors arrive at Orchard Cove, a coach measures theirhealth and wellness in an hourlong, one-on-one session, assessingcommon problems for seniors, like loneliness, pain and distress.The coach also asks about se­niors’ families, friendships, andspiritual life. Then the se­niors meet with their coach every yearbefore their physical checkup with a doctor, to talk about whatmatters most to them. The coaches, who come from a variety ofbackgrounds, including fitness, social work and chaplaincy, helpseniors set goals for the year — which could be physical, social,in­tellectual or spiritual. These goals become the focus for thesenior’s medical team, and the seniors follow up with their coachesevery three months to stay on track.

Wellness coaching aims to rethink how we treat aging, said AlineRussotto, Orchard Cove’s executive director. “We used to be at ourvery best when somebody was in crisis,” she said.

But Orchard Cove staff think they can help residents livehealthier and happier lives by shifting the focus away from “fixingwhat’s broken,” said Russotto, to “living your best day everysingle day until the end.”

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Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news servicecovering health issues. It is an editorially independent program ofthe Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with KaiserPermanente.

Dr. Atul Gawande, author of “Being Mortal” and an expert onend-of-life care, calls the Vitalize 360 approach“transfor­mative.” It recognizes that “even as you may have healthis­sues and frailty and the difficulties that can come with aging …people have lives worth living. And in fact have a lot more lifeworth living,” he said.

When young people become dis­abled, others often help them findways to contribute to the world, he noted, but that is much lesstrue for older people.

“I see it as the kind of thing that you’d like to see gopopulation­wide,” Gawande said. “You’d like to make itroutine.”

Since the program started at Orchard Cove, fitnesspar­ticipation — the proportion of residents who exercise at leastthree times a week — has more than doubled, from 30 to 77 percent,and one study found participants felt significant­ly less depressedthan a control group, with a notable jump in the number who saidthey felt “delighted with life.”

The program itself has spread to 35 communities in 12 states,reaching more than 2,600 older adults in independent or as­sistedliving. Since existing staff can be retrained to serve as coaches,the program isn’t costly, though there is an annual fee fortraining and data-tracking software.

Flashner-Fineman, who spent a decade as Orchard Cove’s fitnessdirector, trav­els to new sites several times a year to run athree-day train­ing to teach new coaches the skills they’ll need towork with patients and run standardized assessments. She and hercol­leagues also train health professionals, leadership and otherstaff on how to orient their care around seniors’ goals.

At Orchard Cove, where the average age is almost 90,Flashner-Fineman coaches a wide range of seniors, includ­ingyounger, healthy residents, like 74-year-old Janet Don­noe, aretired consultant.

In a recent visit, an energetic Don­noe announced “greatprogress” on her fitness goals. She now gets up at 5 a.m. onTuesdays to drive off-campus for nearly two hours of aqua “bootcamp” and weight training. Flash­ner-Fineman asked if Donnoe, whomoved there recently, is making time to meet her neighbors,too.

Programs like this have emerged because seniors are livinglonger and defying predictions of cognitive and functional decline,said John Morris, a researcher at the Institute for Ag­ing Researchat Hebrew SeniorLife, which operates Orchard Cove. Morris designedthe assessment tool that Vitalize 360 uses and is helpingretirement communities track partici­pants’ wellness.

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Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news servicecovering health issues. It is an editorially independent program ofthe Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with KaiserPermanente.

Esther Adler, a 93-year-old poet, writer and former He­brewschool teacher, moved to Orchard Cove in 2012, a few years afterher husband died. She set a goal to “be a pro­ductive person” butdidn’t know exactly how.

After learn­ing about her background in an extensive intakeinterview, staff invited her to start teaching Hebrew to patientson the skilled nursing floor. Adler discovered their memories weretoo short for language lessons, and started teaching Bible les­sonsand prayers instead — a practice she has continued for threeyears.

Adler, who also finds purpose in writing poetry and help­ingneighbors through hospice, has proved resilient amid physicalsetbacks: She broke her pelvis last year when she tripped in thelobby of a hotel room in Poland, the night be­fore the premiere ofa documentary about her life.

“They thought I would never walk,” Adler said. “Here I am, I’mwalking.”

Lipsky, despite her successful trip to China, confessed shefeels “hesitant” about the year ahead. “I’m not as active as I’dlike to be,” she said. As she spoke, her right hand started shaking— a new symptom she hadn’t yet told her doctor about.

But Lipsky lit up talking about achieving another goal, findinga new way to cope with loss. She sat with her granddaughter twoweeks before and di­aled up a medium on Skype to try to communicatewith her husband, Sidney, who died three years earlier.

“She breathed in our en­ergy — on the computer!” Lipsky said.“It was eerie. We felt like he was there.”

She said it helped the family grieve and brought her happiness.Since the experience, she said, “our lives haven’t been thesame.”

In the year ahead, she plans to attend another wedding, thistime in Canada, and continue “finding unexpected things that bringme joy.”

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news servicecovering health issues. It is an editorially independent program ofthe Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with KaiserPermanente.