At Cheltenham Manor, part of Medical and Aged Care Group (MACG), virtual reality has become part of daily life — but it is the interactive fitness component, SilVR FIT, that is producing some of the most unexpected moments the wellbeing team has seen. Two months in, residents who can no longer exercise in the conventional sense are pedaling through the countryside, singing together, and asking when they can go again.
Aaron, Cheltenham Manor’s wellbeing team leader, introduced both SilVR and SilVR FIT to the home earlier this year. What began as a trial has quickly embedded itself into the rhythm of the home’s engagement program, delivered in group sessions in communal areas and one-on-one in residents’ rooms.
“It’s become part of daily life here at the home,” Aaron says. “It’s something our residents look forward to experiencing in their every day.”
From Passive to Active
The distinction Aaron draws between standard VR and SilVR FIT comes down to one word: agency. In a regular VR session, the experience unfolds around the resident. With SilVR FIT, they are the ones driving it.
“It becomes less of a prescriptive experience and more something that provides residents this thing called agency, where they are now impacting their experience,” he says. “Instead of ‘Oh, I’m sitting here in a virtual reality experience and it’s happening around me,’ it’s ‘I’m actually doing it.'”
The setup is practical. A motion tracker attaches to a pedal bike or rowing device, and residents’ physical movement controls what they see. When they pedal faster, the landscape moves faster. When they stop, the world slows with them. The effect, Aaron says, is a naturalness that standard exercise programs cannot replicate.
“To have our residents exercising without them realising they’re exercising — it’s really motivating for them to want to keep moving because they want to see what’s around that corner. They’re on a bike ride and they see some green hills, so they want to get closer and explore. You’re adding a lot more to the person and to the humanity of them, as opposed to just running through rudimentary exercises. You’re touching upon things like exploration, which is a desire that’s within all of us.”
A 103-Year-Old on the Bike
Among the moments that have stayed with Aaron since the program launched, one stands out.
“I had a 103-year-old hop on the bike,” he says. “Watching her ride a bike and trying to touch people as she goes past, talking to people who are moving around her — it shows me that there are multiple facets that person is connecting with, multiple parts of themselves. She’s socialising with other people around her. She’s pushing herself and her fitness to try and get there.”
The group format is central to why those moments happen. Even residents who cannot physically participate on the equipment are drawn in. They watch their friend navigate a path, call out directions, and cheer them on. In one session, the room broke into song together.
“Even for those who might not have the capacity to use their legs, they can sit around and watch their friend go through these places, and they will interact with them. ‘Hey, slow down a bit, I want to see that.’ And it becomes this real communal thing. With the person riding and the people around them singing — it’s a type of connection that we rarely get in aged care, and it’s something SilVR FIT brings out of them.”
The Same Four Walls
SilVR FIT’s group impact is one side of what Aaron describes. The other is quieter, and just as significant.
For residents who cannot leave their rooms, the program travels to them. The headset moves between communal spaces and bedsides, giving people who might otherwise see the same four walls all week a way to go somewhere else entirely.
“They aren’t missing out on anything because of the portability of the experience. They can be lying in bed for the whole week, seeing the same four walls. And to give them a headset where they’re now lying in bed but they don’t feel like they’re in bed — they’re underwater, they’re flying on planes. It really changes their day. It’s intimate and personal, which is what we love to see.”
SilVR’s standard VR experiences have produced similar moments. One resident who had swum at the beach every day of her life before entering care believed she would never swim again. After an underwater VR session, she took off the headset and said she could not wait for her next swim.
A Window Into Who They Were
The program’s impact on staff has surprised Aaron too. Aged care workers rarely get to know the people in their care before they arrived. VR is beginning to change that.
“We haven’t been lucky enough to be there during our residents’ lives before coming into aged care. What virtual reality does is it allows the staff to be brought into their prior history and to be brought into that sense of wonder and exploration they have. A resident might start seeing places where they traveled before — London, Bangkok — and start describing experiences from 60 years ago. For a staff member, we’re now brought into an experience in their lives that was before we even met them. It gives us that much more personal connection with that person.”
With two months behind them and the program still growing, Aaron sees the current phase as the beginning. “We’ve only just started to scrape the surface of these other senses that are within us, beyond the audiovisual. That’s essentially what makes up the human experience. I’m very excited to see where we can go with the immersion.”
About Medical and Aged Care Group (MACG)
Medical and Aged Care Group (MACG) is an Australian aged care provider operating residential care homes across Victoria, including Cheltenham Manor. MACG is committed to delivering person-centred care that supports residents to live with dignity, connection, and purpose. Learn more at https://www.maacg.com.au.
