Keynote Address by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Health, at the Annual Scientific Conference on Ageing, 5 May

Laurence Wee, President of the Gerontological Society of Singapore 

A/P Goh Lee Gan, Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Annual Scientific Conference on Ageing (ASCA 2016) 

Ladies and Gentlemen

            Good morning.  I am delighted to join you at this year’s Annual Scientific Conference on Ageing organised by the Gerontological Society. I am happy to note that this event is held in conjunction with the Society’s 30^th Anniversary celebration. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the society on this significant milestone.

Achieving Successful Ageing Together 

2          Singapore is ageing rapidly. By 2030, about one in four Singaporeans will be aged 65 and above. But our population is ageing partly because we are living longer. Not only are we living longer, we are also living longer in good health. Between 1990 and 2013, our life expectancy increased by 7.1 years. More importantly, our healthy life expectancy also improved by 5.5 years for males and 4.9 years for females over the same period. Therefore, instead of worrying about getting old, we should embrace opportunities arising from our longer life years. 

3          I am thus encouraged to note that the theme for today’s conference is “Good News of Ageing”. It is a powerful theme that seeks to shift our mental frame and narrative about ageing; from one that is associated with illnesses and disabilities to one that is filled with opportunities. 

4          Indeed, it is with an aspiration to help Singaporeans maximise the opportunities from longevity, that the Ministerial Committee on Ageing launched the full report of the Action Plan for Successful Ageing in February this year. This Action Plan, covering more than 70 initiatives across 12 areas maps out a blueprint for a whole-of-society approach to prepare for a rapidly ageing Singapore. These 12 areas ranges from health and wellness, learning, volunteerism, employment, housing, transport, public spaces, respect and social inclusion, retirement adequacy, healthcare and aged care, protection for vulnerable seniors to research. This Action Plan is a living document. It will remain a work in progress because we will welcome and support initiatives which are significant, sustainable and scalable.

5          This Action Plan seeks to help Singaporeans stay healthy, engaged and productive, and age with grace and confidence. It also aims to build a cohesive society where there is inter-generational harmony, and transform Singapore into an enabling city that can support  Singaporeans to age gracefully in place. 

Live Long, Live Well 

6          When we held the public consultation for the Action Plan, many Singaporeans told us that they would like to continue to learn and contribute to the community even in their silver years. As such, we launched a National Silver Academy and a national senior volunteerism movement under the Action Plan so that seniors can look forward to these opportunities and experience for themselves the ‘Good News of Ageing’. The National Silver Academy’s website was launched yesterday. As a start, the new National Silver Academy or NSA will offer seniors more than 10,000 learning places across more than 500 courses for seniors this year. Seniors will receive up to 50% subsidy for short courses offered by the post-secondary education institutions, including the universities, polytechnics and ITEs and may also choose to attend selected modules from existing degree or diploma programmes without having to take the assessment and only for a token fee. Seniors can also tap on their SkillsFuture Credit to cover the balance of course fees payable after government subsidy for a vast majority of NSA courses, making them even more affordable. Through the National Silver Academy, seniors can enjoy a diverse selection of courses ranging from “Wine Appreciation and Tasting Workshop” by the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), “Psychology of Ageing” by Temasek Polytechnic, to “Introduction to Interior Design” by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA).

7          Apart from the National Silver Academy, we would also like to encourage more seniors to volunteer their time and contribute to community development in a variety of ways, such as befriending vulnerable seniors in the community, participating in community gardening, or participating in reading programmes for school children. We target to recruit an additional 50,000 senior volunteers by 2030, and have set up a Silver Volunteer Fund with a target size of $40 million to help community organisations better recruit and develop senior volunteers.

Partnering the Community in Active Ageing 

8          Seniors also recognise that ‘health is wealth’, as they need to remain healthy in order to enjoy other aspects of life.  Hence, another key initiative under the Action Plan is the launch of a new National Seniors’ Health Programme. This programme is aimed at empowering our seniors to stay healthy and adopt healthy living habits by bringing healthy ageing programmes closer to our seniors, and in a structured and systematic manner. Through this programme, we want to educate our seniors on key preventive health issues which are important as we grow older, such as nutrition and exercise.  We will also help seniors understand how to minimise their risk for conditions such as stroke, falls and dementia.

9          Several community groups have also taken the initiative to bring preventive health programmes closer to our seniors. The Dementia Prevention Programme or DPP is one such programme. This is the result of a fruitful partnership between the National University Health System (NUHS), People’s Association (PA) and the National Parks Board (NParks).  The DPP first started in 2013 as a pilot for 100 seniors in TaRa@JurongPoint. This programme comprises health educational talks, tai-chi exercise, mindfulness, art therapy and reminiscence therapy. Preliminary results have been promising. Not only have seniors showed a decrease in symptoms related to anxiety and depression, about 20% of the participants also showed an improvement in concentration and memory.

10        With the initial success of the programme, the DPP has now been extended to the community. Community gardening has also been added as part of DPP. Since September 2015, the DPP, which is a part of PA’s National Wellness Programme, has now been introduced in Queenstown and Eunos. After 3 months of participation, seniors similarly showed improvements in terms of social connectedness and life satisfaction, coupled with a decrease in anxiety and depressive symptoms. The programme will be further evaluated for its effectiveness in protecting seniors against the onset of dementia, and if successful, more sites will be expected to come on board in the future. This partnership is a good example of how the community can come together to introduce active ageing and preventive health programmes to serve our seniors better in the community.

Conclusion 

11        In closing, I am encouraged to see the Gerontological Society take the lead in celebrating ageing, and share the ‘Good News of Ageing’. As a society, we can initiate more ground-up initiatives and community programmes to help our seniors age-in-place with confidence and dignity. We can all come together to build a Nation for All Ages.  Done right, Singapore can become an icon for successful ageing. 

12        I wish you a fruitful conference.