Campaign to Guide Seniors on Proper Eye Care and Exercises
Ministry of HealthSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Ms Joan Pereira’s inquiry regarding a campaign for senior eye care and exercises to prevent dizziness-related falls. Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong explained that the Health Promotion Board conducts broad-based outreach, including distributing guidebooks and health talks. He highlighted exercise programs for strength and balance, alongside Silver Generation Ambassadors who refer seniors to the EASE programme for home modifications. Furthermore, Project Silver Screen provides nationwide functional screenings for vision, hearing, and oral health, reaching over 40,000 seniors since January 2018. These integrated efforts aim to address multifactorial fall risks through upstream prevention, targeted clinical interventions, and ongoing community-based support services.
Transcript
58 Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Health whether the Ministry will consider a campaign to guide our seniors on proper eyesight care and exercises that can prevent dizziness which is a common cause of falls.
Mr Gan Kim Yong: Seniors fall for a variety of factors, such as poor eyesight, decreased lower body strength and dizziness. MOH's efforts on fall prevention comprise both broad-based upstream prevention campaigns and outreach efforts as well as targeted interventions for those at higher risk of falls. Let me cite some examples.
The Health Promotion Board (HPB) has worked with community partners to raise awareness on falls prevention. HPB started a Falls Prevention Awareness Campaign in 2016 to provide seniors with tips to reduce the risk of falls. A guidebook was released containing information on fall prevention strategies such as wearing non-slip footwear and ensuring adequate calcium intake. The guidebooks were distributed through more than 300 touchpoints including Community Clubs and Centres, retail pharmacies, polyclinics and hospitals.
HPB also conducts regular health talks at Community Clubs and Centres, and Residents’ Committees, advising on falls prevention and on good eye care. Over 70,000 seniors have benefitted from these talks over the past two years. In addition, HPB conducts exercise programmes to encourage seniors to build up muscle strength and balance to minimise their risk of falls.
As part of their outreach efforts, Silver Generation Ambassadors (SGAs) conduct simple assessments of seniors’ health status during home visits. SGAs may refer seniors to relevant services such as HDB's Enhancement for Active Seniors (EASE) programme which subsidises home modifications such as anti-slip treatment for tiles and installation of grab bars to prevent falls at home. Seniors may also be linked up with service providers for care and support services.
Most recently, MOH worked with Temasek Foundation Cares to launch Project Silver Screen, a nationwide functional screening programme for seniors to check their vision, hearing and oral health. As part of the screening, seniors are advised on proper eye care, and those with abnormal vision results are referred to an optometrist or eye specialist if needed. Since January 2018, more than 40,000 seniors have benefitted from Project Silver Screen, and about one in three seniors were referred for follow-up care.
MOH and the healthcare family will continue to strengthen our efforts to reduce the risk of falls among our senior population.