Silver Tsunami  (part 2)

Returning to the topic at hand, we have explored how an ageing population may catalyse already present psychological stressors on the younger generation. Hence to address issues pertaining to youth mental health, we must also address the contributing factor of the ageing population. 

In the previous article, I detailed the shortfalls and issues related to an ageing population. For this next section, I shall further expand on this with points raised by Dr Ken. Helping the elderly requires more than just a greater volume of medical facilities and services. A multi-pronged approach  would be ideal to cope with the surmounting silver tsunami. This involves more investments made into prevention or early detection issues. For example, regular screening for hypertension, cholesterol or cancer may help with early detection for such issues. Hence in the long run, this would actually reduce household expenditure on medical services in the long run thereby also alleviating some financial strain on the current generation. But more important than just early detection is prevention. It would come as no surprise when I say that regular exercise and a healthy diet do wonders for both physical and mental health, off putting conditions like dementia and hypertension. However, perhaps this may be barking up the wrong tree, so allow me to rephrase. “Regular exercise” doesn't mean running 10km everyday or going to the gym, and neither does “healthy diet” mean eating nothing but salads. But rather, choosing to walk instead of taking the bus, and less frequent snacking is all that's required. That is why they are called “lifestyle” changes, they are supposed to be sustainable changes for life. 

Speaking of lifestyle changes, I believe it noteworthy to mention certain new technologies which help make our society more “elder friendly” and improve the daily life of the older generations. Locally, there are schemes such as the Wheelchair pilot scheme spearheaded by HDB to empower elderly with moving disabilities to leave their house/apartment using wheelchair lifts. Online there are also app services such as “hero” which reduces the stress of managing medications by providing an all-inclusive service that sorts, dispenses, remembers, and refills seniors’ pills. Whilst on the topic on apps, let us also address the current issue on banking scams. Recent news on the strait times regarding the OCBC scams have brought to my attention the vulnerability to the elderly on being scammed. This is especially so since they are generally not tech savvy hence it would be more difficult for them to discern between scam messages. The current measures of removing SMS OTPs for banking transfers have placed a bandaid on the issue but not addressed the root cause, although I will acknowledge that technological developments and talks on facial recognition software for bank transfers do hold promise. However, the bottom line remains, we need to educate our silver population on how to identify such scams and or lessons on being more oriented with current technologies. How this can be accomplished is still indeterminate, but in my opinion, allowing the younger, more tech savvy generation to educate their parents or grandparents in their own accord seems to be the best solution so far. A more practicable solution, however, would be to host seminars for users or institutes for teaching the dos and don'ts of technology.