Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:38:07.097Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elderly people with mental illness in South-East Asia: rethinking a model of care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Kua Ee Heok
Kua Ee Heok*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, National University of Singapore, email [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The report World Population Ageing 1950–2050 (United Nations, 2002) estimated that in 2005 there were 37.3 million elderly people (i.e. aged 65 years or more) in South-East Asia (a region incorporating Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam). There are only a few epidemiological studies on mental disorders among elderly people in this region and the published data are mainly from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Using Singapore's prevalence rate of 3% for dementia and 5.7% for depression, the numbers of elderly people with dementia in this region would be 1.2 million and with depression 2.12 million (Kua, 1992; Kua & Ko, 1995). However, even in Singapore, we have identified only 10% of all potential cases of dementia and depression — meaning that the large majority of elderly people with mental disorders are not detected, although they may be known, for other reasons, to the health services.

Type
Thematic Paper — Care for Elderly People with Mental Illness
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 34 - 36
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2010

References

Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975) 'Mini-Mental State'. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12, 189–198.Google Scholar
Kua, E. H. (1992) A community study of mental disorders in elderly Singaporean Chinese using the GMS–AGECAT package. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 502–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kua, E. H. (2004) Focus on psychiatry in Singapore. British Journal of Psychiatry, 185, 79–82.Google Scholar
Kua, E. H. & Ko, S. M. (1992) A questionnaire to screen for cognitive impairment among elderly people in developing countries. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 85, 119–122.Google Scholar
Kua, E. H. & Ko, S. M. (1995) Prevalence of dementia among elderly Chinese and Malay residents of Singapore. International Psychogeriatrics, 7, 439–446.Google Scholar
Kua, E. H. & Tan, S. L. (1997) Stress of caregivers of dementia patients in the Singapore Chinese family. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 12, 466–469.Google Scholar
Kua, E. H., Ko, S. M. & Ng, T. P. (2003) Recent trends in elderly suicide rates in a multi-ethnic Asian city. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 18, 533–536.Google Scholar
Ma, S., Kua, E. H. & Ng, T. P. (2009) Determinants of mental health service use in the national mental health survey of the elderly in Singapore. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 50, 2.Google Scholar
Ng, T. P., Tan, C. H. & Kua, E. H. (2004) The use of Chinese herbal medicines and their correlates in Chinese older adults: the Singapore Chinese longitudinal study. Age and Ageing, 33, 135–142.Google Scholar
Phua, K. H. & Kua, E. H. (2009) The economic crisis and mental health services in Asia. Asia–Pacific Psychiatry, 1, 55–57.Google Scholar
Tasman, A., Sartorius, N. & Saraceno, B. (2009) Addressing mental health resource deficiencies in Pacific Rim countries. Asia–Pacific Psychiatry, 1, 3–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations (2002) World Population Ageing 1950–2050. Population Division, DESA, United Nations.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.