Services Provided to the Elderly in Singapore

Services Provided to the Elderly in Singapore

Services Provided to the Elderly in Singapore
There are various social service agencies that tend to take care of the needy and the elderly. The main reason for doing this is to ensure a strong community. These services are provided for many reasons, but this paper will discuss how they are offered a look at a few organizations that offer these services and look at the impact they have on the volunteers that offer them. It will also look at the programs offered by these agencies to provide these services, how the seniors are engaged in the programs and the roles they play on the volunteers. Helping the elderly is part of making them feel they are active in the community and is part if Singapore traditions (Market Asia Pacific, 2004). Tentatively, the paper will delve into the issue of aged care in consideration of three centers:
• Pertapis Senior Citizens Fellowship Home
• SAGE Counseling Centre
• Renci Community Hospital

Across the board, the abovementioned organizations offer similar services. As such, their discussion can be undertaken under the described sub-headings.
The services offered to the elderly include:
Home-based Services
These are the services that are provided to the fragile homebound elderly. They are provided to those who are too weak to move. Their inability to move could stem from afflictions, but are mostly embedded in their age. With the passage of time, most body organs are unable to keep up with the surrounding bustle.

These services address their health and social needs and also support the families that are taking care of their elderly (Haseltine, 2013). These services include:
Home Medical Care
Doctors visit patients in their homes and offer consultations, assessments and management of the patient’s condition so as to ensure that the health of the patient is good and stable. (Carol, 2006) The main aim of providing home medical care services is to ensure that the patient is healthy and they are functioning independently for as long as possible at home and in the community this is helpful because it helps to avoid institutional care such as admitting the elderly into a nursing home.
Home Nursing Care
This done by nurses whereby they provide nursing services to elderly, for example, the insertion of the oxygen and other nasogastric gases into the patient, stoma care and the cleaning and dressing of any wounds that they might have. The nurses play an essential role in that they manage and review the patient’s health care plan. That is in collaboration with doctors and other staff that may be involved in the patients care plan.
Palliative Home Care
This type of service deals with the provision of holistic support, for instance, medical and nursing services to terminally ill patients and their families at large. A team of multi-disciplinary doctors and nurses, social workers and services providers in their homes supports these patients and their families. The main focus of this service is to ensure that the quality of the patients remaining days is improved. Providing services such as counseling, pain control, to some extent providing nursing care and system relief, mainly does these.
Meals on Wheels
The concept means providing meals for the elderly. This is done by providing meals at the doorsteps of those who are too elderly and cannot buy and prepare food for themselves. This approach allows the elderly to maintain their freedom, but still enjoy ordinary care. Additionally, the provision of meals by experts ensures that they get the right diet for sustenance.
Escort and Transport Services
This service helps in arranging transportation for the patient’s appointments if maybe the patient is unable to utilize public transport due to their frail movement or their non-ambulant status or their working caregiver feels they need such assistance. If the need arises, a medical escort will be awarded to the elderly patient. The endeavor aims at minimizing the aged individuals’ exposure to harm.
Ensuite Services
The elderly individual may choose from a variety of care services that may be available to them. Examples include medication reminder services, a person to assist them with their personal hygiene, activities that will help in stimulating their minds and any other personal tasks that may comfortably meet and satisfy their needs. At their stage of life, the aged cannot be able to carry out even tasks deemed as devoid of any effort.
Central-based Services
These are services that tend to cater for older people in Singapore that require care services during a daytime, usually on a regular basis (Luois, 2009). These services are mostly provided by centers that are mostly located within the community. This is also helpful because those in need can receive these services in a familiar environment that is close to their homes. This also creates a convenient working environment to caregivers as they can easily drop off their seniors during work. These services also include:
Community Rehabilitation Services
Senior cares centers provide some of these services. Tentatively, they mainly concentrate on the provision of physiotherapy and occupational therapy to the patients those certain conditions that may impair their functioning abilities, for instance, strokes (WHO, 2012). The main idea behind this is to improve the elderly patient’s functional status to the best level a healthy person should have and to the best medical level possible. This allows the patients to regain their ability to perform the daily chores and remain active in the community.
Social Day Care Services
They are also provided by dare cares, for example, social day cares centres that offer for the provision of care for the elderly that need some supervision when the rest of their family members are working during the day (Mehta, 2005). They include the following components: caregiver support programs, activity programs that include reading and karaoke, simple maintenance programs that include exercise and also promote social interactions that promote good quality life.
Agencies that Provide for the Elderly in Singapore
Renci Community Hospital- This community hospital offers services that include: dementia care services, rehabilitation and day care services. They also offer nursing home services. These types of services that are offered at the hospital help patients in many ways for example they have day care services. This means that when the families of the elderly are at work they have a place to take their elderly people instead of dragging them wherever they go. They also offer services that focus on effectively meeting the patient’s emotional needs especially for patients with dementia as this helps to improve their memory and language.
Pertapis Senior Citizens Fellowship Home- This is also a home for the elderly, and they also provide some services that are helpful to the elderly. They offer recreation activities for the elderly for example they occasionally hold musical performances and theatres for the elderly. Such services help the elderly, as they become a part of something while remaining active in the society. They also offer physiotherapy services that help the elderly who are diagnosed with various diseases. They offer services that help their patients remain healthy and also maintain mobility.
Singapore Action Group of Elders
SAGE Counseling Centre- This is a non-religious and non-profitable organization that focuses on the well-being of the elderly, their caregivers, and their family members. They offer face-to-face counseling services carried out by professional counselors. This center mainly deals with people are above 50 years of age and are going through hard times either self-inflicted or with the rest of their family members. They offer counseling to the elderly and help them go through various events in life. They also counsel those that are depressed and are contemplating suicide. They deal with guidance and counseling. They also help the elderly that need information on services and activities for older people.
Roles of Volunteers in the Service Providing Agencies
Volunteers play a very important role in life in that they act in favor of programs that tend to reach out and touch the lives of people in need (Chia, 2001). Volunteers at these service providing agencies have various roles that they are expected or to play. It is important to note that different agencies have different roles their volunteers. However they have almost similar roles that are:
Sharing a skill- This involves organizing a workshop or class for the purpose of imparting skills. Organizing these workshops and classes helps discover talent and also a lot of constructive things or ideas can originate from them. Some of them can be organized for leisure for example sports and music (Ray & Louis, 2009)
Contributing a talent- It is the role of a volunteer to contribute what he/she can do to the organization and the elderly patient in general. It is also advisable to offer advice to the patients on the talent that the volunteer has. Also, it is the role of the volunteer to teach the patients a little about the talent they have so long as it can help them meet need their needs or at times for pleasure. These activities may include: hairdressing and basic health screening.
A volunteer also has the role of maintaining and improving the facilities at these agencies. This helps a lot in that the equipment that the elderly find at the organization will be already of good quality and will not harm them when they operate the equipment if the need arises. Another role of a volunteer is to sort and refurbish old items at the homes. These items may have been donated and hence cannot be thrown away, and they need recycling. Providing events support to the management is also another essential role played by volunteers. This involves providing logistical and photography to the event management to ensure that nothing was done illegally. A volunteer should organize collections and be ready to raise funds for the organizations. They should also encourage activities that lead to the donation of either first or second-hand items or even promote food rations.
Services and Activities Provided by the Service Providing Agencies
Day Rehabilitation Services- These are services that are offered in order to ensure that the patient is properly functioning towards a full recovery and this is done by providing sessional occupational therapy and basically it is achieved through a programme to rehabilitate the elderly (SES, 2015) .
Day Care Services- These are services that are supplied to provide support to the elderly so they can maintain their general physical and psychological health on a full day basis. The services come in handy for caregivers as they have a place to drop off their patients as they go to work (Reisman, 2009).
Dementia Day Care Service- This type of service is offered to specifically dementia patients. It helps them maintain good physical, emotional and psychological health on a full day basis.
Centre-based Nursing Service- This service is meant for taking care of senior patients in the community. They are mainly located around the community for easy accessibility and also to provide patients with the familiar ground for treatment (Ministry of Community Development and Sport, 2001). Another aspect covered by the same includes their ability to monitor drug intake. In most cases, the aged cannot be able to remember to take regularly their prescriptions.
Physical Health- In the homes there usually is mass exercise and physiotherapy sessions that are privatized so as to ensure the patients get sufficient attention. This helps the patients in promoting a healthy lifestyle and ensures that they assume a positive attitude towards life and develop a positive outlook among other residents and the community in general.
Medical Care- The nursing staff and other medical professionals at the home monitor and do follow-ups on patients.
Leisure Activities- Engaging patients in leisure activities is a form of the program adapted by these homes. They help the patients in that they help challenge their minds, and this is very crucial in helping to maintain the sanity of an elderly individual and also enhance better motor skills (Ong, 2001).
How the Agencies Engage the Seniors
By providing day care services the homes and their staff can get to know the individuals at a personal level and through this, they are able to know easily when they are fine or bored and when they not ( Lim & Kua, 2011). Through the creation of leisure activities, these home engage the elderly in a lot of activities since they are many, and an individual cannot fail to like at least one activity they find there. Through counseling, counselors can know the exact problem that the patient is going through as counseling sessions is private and protected by patient-doctor confidentiality. By identifying the problem quickly, they can help the patients immediately. Performances are held for people in these homes they might be musical or theater, and this helps the patients in bonding. Through this, they can know other patients who they share their story with and the saying says a problem shared is a problem half solved. The homes also offer physiotherapy to their patients, this helps the patients to improve their health and also their social lives as they get to know new people, for example, the hospitals staff and other patients who are going through the same type of treatment they are going through.
References
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