Comedian George Burns once said, “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” Larry Landry, chairman and CEO of Masterpiece Living, LLC, agrees, and promotes successful aging.
In 1999, Landry founded Masterpiece Living (MPL) with the purpose of challenging senior stereotypes, both those imposed externally and those seniors impose on themselves. Derived from the findings of the MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, MPL is an approach to successful aging that focuses on maintaining physical and mental health during the later stages of life.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the basics of Masterpiece Living, its goals and how to use MPL to successfully age.
What Does Masterpiece Living Mean?
MPL is a holistic approach to successful aging. It is based on the fact that how we age depends more on lifestyle choices (70 percent) than simply genetics (30 percent), and that by staying active and reducing our risk for disease and injury, we can continue to learn and grow as we age.
MPL targets four components of a healthy lifestyle:
- Physical activity
- Social interaction
- Intellectual stimulation
- Spiritual engagement
What are the Goals of Masterpiece Living?
According to Dr. Roger Landry, president of Masterpiece Living preventive medicine physician, and author of award-winning Live Long, Die Short: A Guide to Authentic Health and Successful Aging, this approach is designed to:
- Transform communities into centers for successful aging where older adults can be engaged and live purposefully.
- Provide tools to empower older adults to continue to grow and have a better aging experience.
- Track outcomes and data to build compelling arguments to influence public policy.
How Do I Use Masterpiece Living to Age Successfully?
To age successfully, seniors must make smart, measured decisions about their health and well-being—in other words, the main tenet of MPL.
So how can you age successfully with Masterpiece Living?
Masterpiece Living communities provide activities and resources that help older adults choose the right path within each of the four components above: They attend exercise classes and follow nutritional advice to improve physical health; participate in planned social activities and hang out in communal areas to build friendships; sit in on lectures and discussion groups to keep their minds sharp; and they seek out literature that helps them discover their place in the universe.
Rather than considering aging as a time of decline, participants in Masterpiece Living believe it’s a time to thrive. MPL encourages the belief that reaching a certain age doesn’t mean you should stop learning and growing as a person. As you grow older, the most important thing to remember is to just have fun. Age is only a number, after all.
Ready to get started planning your future with Masterpiece Living? Sign up for one of our educational workshops and take the first step toward successfully aging in a Life Care community.
