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We Can Prevent the Hidden Scourge of Senior Isolation

“Life is valuable and an elderly person is not to be discarded, but an asset who can connect you to your culture.” Winnie Singh’s quote espousing intergenerational bonding struck a chord with me, having grown up with doting grandparents.

Working on Our Better World’s multimedia story on her India-based non-profit Maitri India — which supports elderly widows who have been shunned by their loved ones and society — resonated with me on an emotional level, as it evoked memories of my late paternal grandmother.

What conceivable parallels could be drawn between seniors from a joint family structure and those living on society’s fringes, you may wonder.

Senior isolation, an underlying theme of the story, is universal. A 2015 study conducted by Centre for Ageing Research and Education (CARE) at Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School revealed that 9 per cent of Singaporeans aged 62 years and older reported being lonely. This is despite the fact that many live in multi-generational families.

Feelings of loneliness are often looked asquint in Asian households, where the subject of emotional well-being isn’t your standard dinnertime fodder. Instead — in my family, at least — we express our care and affection through actions such as plying one another with food, or finding humour in the mundane.

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