Adding 15 Million Years of Healthy Life: GERI at the Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress 2024 (Part One)

GERI researchers contributed their research findings through a series of engaging poster presentations at the 22^nd Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress (SHBC) 2024 at the Singapore Expo on 10 and 11 October.

Themed “Adding 15 Million Years of Healthy Life", the National Healthcare Group's annual flagship conference gathered healthcare professionals, scientists, community care partners, and researchers over three days to discuss the challenges of delaying the onset of serious illness and raising the healthspan of the population.

In this two-part feature series, we gather highlights from GERI's poster presentations, which cover a range of topics, including advance care planning, brief geriatric assessment, appropriate prescribing, and community-based interventions for older adults. Read part one of the highlights below.

“Enhancing advance care planning practice using a Knowledge Translation (KT) approach“[PDF, 330 KB]

Research Fellow Dr Yu Chou Chuen presented a project on using the Knowledge-To-Action model in a novel way to pioneer a national framework guiding how advance care planning (ACP) is implemented.

In addition to utilising implementation science principles, the year-long process to develop the quality framework also involved engaging stakeholders such as ACP facilitators and healthcare professionals, and formulating implementation strategies that are contextualised to local settings to address selected barriers.​

“Developing a Delphi consensus on the domains and conduct of brief geriatric assessments for case-finding in Singapore“[PDF, 228 KB]

While a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is highly effective in assessing older adults holistically in order to develop long term personalised care plans for them, it is resource-intensive. A brief geriatric assessment (BGA) is a possible alternative but there is limited evidence on how best to implement it in community and primary care settings.

Research Fellow Dr Jonathan Gao's poster presentation focused on a two-round Delphi study involving experts in geriatric and family medicine. This study found that BGAs should be administered selectively by healthcare professionals in order to first identify older adults with geriatric syndromes, so that they can then be referred for a CGA.

“Exploring the motivating factors for fitness instructors to deliver the Live Well Age Well programme in Singapore: A mixed-method study“[PDF, 343 KB]

The Live Well Age Well (LWAW) programme, a community-based initiative in Singapore, engages fitness instructors to provide group exercises (Move It Feel Strong) and functional assessments for older adults. This study, presented by Irene Wang Qing, Research Associate, explored the factors that motivate these non-healthcare professionals to take on such roles in the community.

Through a mixed-methods approach, the study revealed that intrinsic motivators, such as the personal fulfilment gained from enhancing the well-being of older adults, were the most significant drivers for them.

Congratulations to all our researchers for their continued contributions to improving the health of older adults in Singapore!​