Students help seniors at health screenings

SINGAPORE - Mr Koh Tiong San did not know where to go to get his broken teeth fixed.

"My dentist did not dare to fix it for me," said the 74-year-old in Mandarin. "So I came here for some advice."

Mr Koh, who attends NTUC Health Silver Circle Senior Care Centre in Geylang, is one of 22 senior residents who signed up for a community screening programme at Geylang Methodist Secondary School on Monday (Aug 27)

Called Functional Screenings, they involve basic checks on vision, hearing and oral health, and can detect any age-related decline in functional ability so that timely intervention can be given.

Seniors usually receive their results on the day of their screening. Those with abnormal results will be advised to seek follow-ups with the relevant healthcare professionals.

While the programme has been around since 2011, Monday's screening was slightly different as, for the first time, 25 students from the school were around to help the seniors as they moved from one station to another for their checks.

The collaboration between the school and the National Healthcare Group (NHG) aimed to take an inter-generational approach to the screening process, where students learnt about the ageing process and showing empathy.

An NHG spokesman said that with Singapore's elderly population increasing, more seniors are expected to become frail and open to disabilities that affect their independence, such as reduced mobility, vision loss, hearing loss and dementia.

"Functional screening enables timely provision of healthcare services to older adults with declining function," said the spokesman. "With early detection, we hope to help improve their quality of life through effective interventions. This inter-generational collaboration is a way to spread health literacy among the young, their parents, grandparents and the seniors in the community effectively."

Secondary 2 student Raksha Narayan Rao, 13, who visits her grandparents abroad once a year, said that the experience helped her to understand seniors better. "I was initially out of my comfort zone. The seniors could not understand me and they spoke really softly," she said. "Eventually, I learnt to see things from a different perspective. I talked to them about things we had in common, like reading, and really enjoyed it."

Mr Koh - who was referred for further check-ups - said that the students' help made the screening process easier. "They remind me of my grandchildren," he said.