In 2023, residents aged 65 years and above made up 17.3 percent of the total resident population in Singapore. Singapore is currently one of the most rapidly aging societies in Asia, along with Japan. The elderly in Singapore Improvements in healthcare and the standard of living over the years have contributed to an increase in life expectancy in Singapore. This was reflected in the decreasing death rate of elderly residents over the decades. The increase in the share of the elderly population was further compounded by a decreasing total fertility rate, which was well below the 2.1 needed for a balanced population. By 2050, the elderly population in Singapore was forecasted to be a third of its total population. Economic burden of an aging society Singapore thus faces significant economic challenges due to an increasingly elderly population. The number of elderly dependents to the working age population had been steadily increasing. As Singaporeans face the prospect of living longer, more and more elderly had chosen to return to work after retirement. Singapore society still places the responsibility of caring for the elderly on younger family members. However, the burden of care is expected to increase with the years, and whether this model is sustainable remains to be seen.

With an ageing population, the use of mobility scooters by community-dwelling older adults with mobility limitations has been increasingly prevalent in Singapore. Their experiences in using mobility scooters remain unclear. This study aimed to explore the impact of mobility scooters on occupational performance and engagement among elderly Singaporeans. Mobility scooter users were recruited via purposive and snowballing sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in English or Mandarin via phone call or face-to-face and audio-recorded with permission. Interviews were transcribed verbatim in their original language and translated to English (when applicable) for thematic analysis. Twelve eligible participants (mean age: 75 years) completed the interviews. They were predominantly female Chinese with 7 receiving training from occupational therapists (OT). Four main themes emerged from the interviews describing their experiences of using mobility scooters: factors of decision-making in getting a mobility scooter, enhanced occupational participation with the use of the mobility scooter, enablers for community participation and barriers to community participation. Despite having barriers, older adults with mobility limitations generally still had positive experiences to continue using mobility scooters to perform occupations in the community. This study highlights the benefits of mobility scooters in supporting users’ occupational performance and engagement in the community. Continual efforts are required from all stakeholders to provide an accessible environment and improve societal attitudes to further support the mobility scooter users.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONMobility scooter users can be deterred from performing their preferred occupations if they had a prior negative encounter and they mainly rely on self-developed coping strategies to overcome possible barriers in the community.Occupational therapists should identify and address the potential barriers when prescribing mobility scooters to older adult users.Occupational therapists should work collaboratively with other key stakeholders, such as external vendors and government agencies, to co-create a universal guideline to support and safeguard mobility scooter users. Mobility scooter users can be deterred from performing their preferred occupations if they had a prior negative encounter and they mainly rely on self-developed coping strategies to overcome possible barriers in the community. Occupational therapists should identify and address the potential barriers when prescribing mobility scooters to older adult users. Occupational therapists should work collaboratively with other key stakeholders, such as external vendors and government agencies, to co-create a universal guideline to support and safeguard mobility scooter users.

In 2024, the total population of Singapore is estimated to be approximately 6.04 million peopl. Population growth in the country is slow and numbers have still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, where the pandemic's economic impact on migration saw the population fall by a quarter of a million people between 2019 and 2021. The youth is fading Singapore’s population is getting older, with the age bracket of those aged 65 and older increasing with every year. The median age of Singaporeans is increasing rapidly, from 34.1 years in the year 2000 to an estimated 42.4 by 2020, and it is estimated to peak at around 55 years in the middle of the century. The old are here to stay The majority of Singaporeans are between 25 and 60 years old. In the years to come, improving healthcare and one of the highest life expectancies at birth will see this majority shift to the elderly. Additionally, Singapore’s fertility rate is among the lowest in the world and is well below the replacement rate, which means that Singapore’s population is not only getting older but its rate of natural increase (i.e. population growth not including migration) is now negative. This trend could have economic consequences, such as lower GDP growth and increasing old-age dependency.

In 2023, the labor force participation rate of Singapore residents aged 65 years and above was at **** percent. The labor force participation rate for this age group had been increasing in the last ten years, as Singapore faces an aging population with longer life expectancies. Many residents are increasingly facing the need to work longer or re-renter the workforce after retirement in order to support themselves, amongst other reasons.

Background: Multi-system physiological dysregulation (PD) may represent a biological endo-phenotype of clinical frailty. We investigated the co-occurrence of PD with physical frailty and its contributions to the known impact of frailty on adverse health outcomes.Methods: Data of 2,725 participants from the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Studies (SLAS-2), included baseline measures of physical frailty and PD derived from Mahalanobis distance (Dm) value of 23 blood biomarkers. We analyzed their concurrent association and their impacts on 9-year mortality, MMSE cognition, GDS depression, number of medications, disability, and hospitalization at baseline and follow up (mean 4.5 years).Results: Global PD (Log10Dm, mean = 1.24, SD = 0.24) was significantly but weakly associated with pre-frailty-and-frailty. Controlling for age, sex and education, pre-frailty-and-frailty (HR = 2.12, 95% CI = 1.51–3.00) and PD (HR = 3.88, 95% CI = 2.15–6.98) predicted mortality. Together in the same model, mortality HR associated with pre-frailty-and-frailty (HR = 1.83, 95% CI = 1.22–2.73) and PD (HR = 3.06, 95% CI = 1.60–5.85) were reduced after additionally adding global PD to the prediction model. The predictive accuracy for mortality were both approximately the same (PD: AUC = 0.62, frailty: AUC = 0.64), but AUC was significantly increased to 0.68 when combined (p < 0.001). Taken into account in the same model, frailty remained significantly associated with all health and functional outcomes, and PD was significantly associated with only MMSE, disability and medications used. In secondary analyses, there were mixed associations of system-specific PDs with frailty and different adverse outcomes.Conclusions: Co-existing PD and physical frailty independently predict mortality and functional and health outcomes, with increased predictive accuracy when combined. PD appears to be a valid representation of a biological endo-phenotype of frailty, and the potential utility of such subclinical measures of frailty could be further studied.

Purpose: Exercise-based treatment approaches for dysphagia may improve swallow function in part by inducing adaptive changes to muscles involved in swallowing and deglutition. We have previously shown that both aging and progressive resistance tongue exercise, in a rat model, can induce biological changes in the genioglossus (GG); a muscle that elevates and protrudes the tongue. However, the impacts of progressive resistance tongue exercise on the retrusive muscles (styloglossus, SG; hyoglossus, HG) of the tongue are unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a progressive resistance tongue exercise regimen on the retrusive tongue musculature in the context of aging. Given that aging alters retrusive tongue muscles to more slowly contracting fiber types, we hypothesized that these biological changes may be mitigated by tongue exercise.Methods: Hyoglossus (HG) and styloglossus (SG) muscles of male Fischer 344/Brown Norway rats were assayed in age groups of young (9 months old, n = 24), middle-aged (24 months old, n = 23), and old (32 months old, n = 26), after receiving an 8-week period of either progressive resistance protrusive tongue exercise, or sham exercise conditions. Following exercise, HG and SG tongue muscle contractile properties were assessed in vivo. HG and SG muscles were then isolated and assayed to determine myosin heavy chain isoform (MyHC) composition.Results: Both retrusive tongue muscle contractile properties and MyHC profiles of the HG and SG muscles were significantly impacted by age, but were not significantly impacted by tongue exercise. Old rats had significantly longer retrusive tongue contraction times and longer decay times than young rats. Additionally, HG and SG muscles showed significant MyHC profile changes with age, in that old groups had slower MyHC profiles as compared to young groups. However, the exercise condition did not induce significant effects in any of the biological outcome measures.Conclusion: In a rat model of protrusive tongue exercise, aging induced significant changes in retrusive tongue muscles, and these age-induced changes were unaffected by the tongue exercise regimen. Collectively, results are compatible with the interpretation that protrusive tongue exercise does not induce changes to retrusive tongue muscle function.

Introduction: Although successful aging (SA) studies have examined objective indicators such as disease and disability, physical and cognitive function, and social and productive engagement, as well as subjective indicators such as self-rated health, function, and well-being, the interplay among these indicators is rarely studied. We studied SA profiles that captured this interplay and evaluated the association of these profiles with mortality in the oldest-old. Methods: Respondents were 1,000 Chinese Singaporeans aged ≥85 years during interview visits from 2017 to 2018. Latent class analysis examined 12 objective and subjective indicators to identify SA profiles. Multivariable Cox regression assessed the relationship between these profiles and all-cause mortality risk through 2020. Results: Four distinct SA profiles were identified: “frail and dejected” (poor performance in nearly all objective and subjective indicators), “frail but resilient” (poor in objective but good in subjective indicators), “fairly fit and neutral” (good in about half of the indicators), and “fit and positive” (good in nearly all indicators). Compared with “frail and dejected,” the adjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) for mortality risk was 0.63 (0.40–0.97) in “frail but resilient,” 0.56 (0.34–0.93) in “fairly fit and neutral,” and 0.31 (0.19–0.49) in “fit and positive.” Discussion: SA in the oldest-old could take different profiles based on objective and subjective indicators, and these profiles have implications for mortality risk. Individuals with good subjective indicators have advantage in survival despite poor objective indicators.

BackgroundWe examine the relationship between people’s personal values and their attitudes toward older adults. In addition to the two conventionally-used measures of personal values (agency subdimension and communion subdimension), we distinguish across 10 different value types and explore how each impacts attitude.MethodsWe use data from the World Values Survey for three aging Asian societies, namely Japan (N = 2448), Singapore (N = 1972), and Hong Kong PRC (N = 1000). For each sample, we perform regression-based analyses to assess the relative importance of the 10 value types in explaining people’s attitudes towards older adults. Results are then compared against regressions based on the two aggregate value measures.ResultsIn all three economies, the agency subdimension was a more consistent predictor of unfavorable attitudes toward older adults, as compared to the communion subdimension. Our disaggregated analysis reveals two additional insights. First, the positive association between agentic values and attitudes was driven predominantly by the power (wealth) and stimulation (excitement) value types. Second, the lack of association between the communion subdimension and attitudes must be interpreted with caution since certain value types within this subdimension may act in opposite directions causing effects to cancel each other out at the aggregate level.ConclusionsDisaggregating personal value types provides greater prognostic power than the two aggregate measures, as well as insights on ways to improve people’s attitudes toward older adults. Interventions aimed at reducing ageist attitudes in aging societies can target individuals with agentic traits by emphasizing notions of power (e.g., older adults’ economic success) and stimulation (e.g., positive images of older adults learning new things).

In the past decade, Japan’s degree of urbanization has leveled off at around 92.04 percent. This means that less than 10 percent of Japan’s population of 126 million inhabitants do not live in an urban setting. Japan is well above the degree of urbanization worldwide, which is 55 percent. Japan is also known for its high population density: In 2017, it amounted to an eye-watering 347.78 inhabitants per square kilometer - however, it is not even among the top twenty countries with the highest population density worldwide. That ranking is lead by Monaco, followed by China, and Singapore. Japan’s aging population The main demographic challenge that Japan currently faces is an aging population, as the number of inhabitants over 65 years old is an increasing percentage of the population. As of 2018, Japan is the country with the largest percentage of total population over 65 years, and life expectancy at birth there is about 84 years. Simultaneously, the birth rate in Japan is declining, resulting in negative population growth in recent years. One method Japan is using to address these demographic shifts is by investing in automated work processes; it's one of the top countries interested in collaborative robots.