On a mission to make ageing a joy, not a burden | MEDICUS 2025 Issue 1

Turning the sunset years golden: Atiqah Lee’s mission to make ageing a joy, not a burden

By Tan Ruilin, Writer

Ms Atiqah Lee employs her experience as a case manager, training in psychology, multilingualism and personal liking for older persons to be a quadruple-threat qualitative researcher // Credit: Norfaezah Abdullah, Duke-NUS

“Ageing well means different things to different people. But at its core, it’s about having choice, connection, and a community that cares.”

For Atiqah Lee, ageing isn’t just a phase of life—it’s a field of study, a personal mission, and a cause she’s deeply invested in shaping. A research associate at Duke-NUS’ Centre for Ageing Research & Education (CARE), she has an impervious demeanour of calm, but lights up with amusement when she recounts her interviewees seeking approval to questions that have no right answers.

“The participants will ask, ‘Is it good or not? My answer good or not?’ I’ll have to tell them, Auntie, it doesn’t matter!”

Through working with seniors who are surveyed as part of CARE’s research, the aspiring gerontologist hopes to shed light on how people can age in a more supported, healthy and happy fashion. Lee’s expansive range of responsibilities sees her on the ground, where she travels throughout the country for fieldwork and training interviewers, while having an bird’s eye view of higher-level policy in disseminating insights and managing stakeholders.

“The work is fulfilling because we make sure their voices are heard. I do my best to get honest feedback—I don’t want the politically correct answer.”
Ms Atiqah Lee

At present, Lee co-manages the Evaluation of Active Ageing Centres study with her colleague Malcolm Ravindran, which assesses the effectiveness of active ageing centres (AACs) in Singapore. AACs are drop-in recreational centres situated nationwide that extend support to seniors in the nearby community, and Lee’s work takes a different approach from operationalising the ‘success’ of an AAC through attendance rates and engagement records. Speaking to individual older persons, Lee aims to understand just what the nuances of their experience with AACs are.

The work makes impositions on Lee’s capacity for empathy. As qualitative research focuses on participants’ opinions and experiences, rather than numbers and statistics, Lee is often required to be emotionally present and highly aware of participants’ social contexts and psychological states when they divulge their stories, usually in one-to-one interviews, discussion groups or field observations.

Honest, not correct, answers

Said Lee, “I’m looking for honest opinions... All this work must be for the betterment of something.”

Being around older persons is inherently rewarding to Lee—who says she feels peaceful and lights up around them. Whenever she’s investigating an ageing concept, Lee takes pleasure in having a clear purpose. Every interview begins with wanting to benefit the larger community, but it’s a delicate balancing act between professionalism and making participants feel safe and heard.

In Lee’s line of work, conversation is paramount, and she exchanges words in English, Malay and Mandarin, the last of which she has studied for 12 years. Her polyglottal abilities are described by her supervisor Dr Ad Maulod as their team’s “secret weapon”. Though older participants may make assumptions about her ethnicity—especially because she wears the hijab—they are often pleasantly surprised at her linguistic versatility, their curiosity piqued about her personal history. The “secret weapon” of gathering stories? Building instant rapport.

But this rapport does mean that she hears stories where participants are socially withdrawn, or expressing helplessness, loneliness or grief. When encountering such cases, she talks to her husband, whom she describes as her rock, or her friends in social work. In addition, it is a practice for the CARE interviewers to make a follow-up call to check on, and provide relevant hotlines to, any participant in a precarious situation. This allows them to evaluate whether the participant may need additional support.

Lee training older persons as community interviewers—a way to engage members of the community and teach them the skill of interviewing participants // Credit: Courtesy of Atiqah Lee

Lee has a background as a community case manager, where she mainly supported older persons with mental health issues or dementia, as well as caregivers. While such cases might overlap slightly with her work at CARE, Lee wanted to beef up her interviewing skills. She shadowed colleagues navigating tricky situations, such as when a participant shares something that makes her ‘want to tear up’, typically stories of loss and regret.

Despite the obvious parallels between these roles, her work as a case manager allowed Lee to delve much more into her clients’ feelings, as well as help them problem-solve. Now, as a researcher, she still has participants’ best interests at heart, but has her own research concerns to consider.

“For instance, if older persons ask for my help with some domestic tasks—I remind myself that I’m not here to be a handyman (laughs). Maybe because of limited mobility or support, they will ask any visitors that drop by for help.” Lee will then gently redirect them to community services, being practical about what she can offer as an individual.

“The work is fulfilling because we make sure their voices are heard. I do my best to get honest feedback—I don’t want the politically correct answer.”

To search for honest, not correct, answers, all to better the existing state of affairs, sounds well and good. But how?

“I know people start being honest when they stop double-checking with me. I’ll reassure them that it’s not me evaluating these answers, and ask for their most honest opinion—also ensuring that I don’t respond in any judgmental way!”

Maintaining non-judgment can take its toll. Lee cracks up when she talks about her strategies to present a neutral, unaffected face—she’s stoic, but certainly not an automaton! Sometimes, when a participant’s responses are truly unexpected, breaking through Lee’s poker face, she has an unorthodox solution.

“In those cases, wearing a face mask is so useful. Since the pandemic, when masks became normalised, it was the best thing for us!” Lee says a mask maintains that human connection, by being able to make eye contact, while giving them some leeway in holding their composure.

The making of a gerontologist

Her journey into the field of gerontology originated from Lee’s experiences with her late maternal grandmother. While Lee completed junior college, she also supported her aunt, the main caregiver for her grandmother, in her duties over the weekends. Lee would bathe and tend to her grandmother, who was then almost 80 years old.

“She went through an episode of delirium, though at first, the family didn’t know it was delirium.”

Her grandmother’s acute episode was confusing and worrying to others. After some time, a doctor’s prescribed change in her medication resolved the episode. But not being able to understand her grandmother’s behaviour made Lee want to focus on mental health and resilience among older adults.

A photo of (clockwise) Lee’s parents, Lee, her husband, brother and late paternal grandmother during a Lunar New Year reunion in 2020. “With older persons, such as my mother and father, who are both in their late sixties, they don’t want to be a burden to others, often telling me ‘No need!’ for anything I try to help them with. Speaking to other older persons gives me a peek into what they really are thinking.” // Credit: Courtesy of Atiqah Lee

Asking the right questions

After earning her master’s in gerontology from the Singapore University of Social Sciences, Lee decided her efforts would be most well-spent as a researcher advocating for better systems.

“Often, whether research translates to policy really depends on what findings organisations use to inform their actions. Advocacy is a huge part of being a researcher.”

This found her joining Maulod’s team at Duke-NUS’ CARE, where their findings target real-world initiatives being rolled out in Singapore’s rapidly ageing populace.

For instance, in evaluating the active ageing centres, Lee shares that her team realised that the efficacy and vibrancy of an AAC depends largely on the centre manager’s personality. Each community has its unique challenges, and centre managers work around them to build rapport and networks that help its residents.

“Potentially good centre managers,” she reckoned, “need the space to reflect—before they get caught up in day-to-day operations and key performance indicators. At the end of the day, it’s about making the best of what you have—you can’t lift the AAC to another location, for instance. It’s about the people, having a cooperative team, and institutional support.”

A milestone moment in Lee’s career at CARE was to present a study on caregivers at the Caregiver Symposium just last year, organised jointly by CARE and the Tsao Foundation. This moment was notable—and nerve-wracking—for Lee, who was part of the Symposium’s organising committee, as rarely does one get a chance to present academic work onstage // Credit: Courtesy of Atiqah Lee

Sunrise on the golden years

Having a cooperative team seems to also fuel Lee’s own work in Duke-NUS. Despite describing ageing as a ‘sunrise’ industry—one that is rapidly expanding—Lee stays with the CARE team, rather than potentially earning much more in the private sector.

Jokingly, Lee asked, “Am I very naïve?”

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She continued, “I’m not here for the money—I’m here for as long as I resonate with the work that I’m doing.”

Maintaining emotional investment in Lee’s work is attributed to “it all coming back to having a good team”. Synthesising individual efforts to reach a shared goal helps the team to learn from one another and bounce back from mistakes—also letting Lee fruitfully rest on the weekends, giving her the mental space to stay present at work.

“The work would be the same elsewhere, but the people and purpose make it different. We can take breaks and have someone else follow up on the same tasks. They don’t have to ‘haunt’ us while we’re on leave.

“Part of it is good leadership—Dr Maulod gives me tasks he knows I can complete with realistic timelines, as well as trusting my work and that I will deliver. So, I’ve not experienced burnout.”

And, promisingly, with the skills she’s acquired, she won’t have to.

Lee with the team from CARE that she works with. From left to right: Dr Ad Maulod, Dr Arthur Chia, Atiqah Lee, Malcolm Ravindran, and Wong Yunjie // Credit: Norfaezah Abdullah, Duke-NUS

Growing older in a bolder way

At the end of the day, with all the older participants she’s interviewed, Lee is surprisingly reserved when it comes to concluding what makes for a healthy, happy ageing process.

“Ageing well has a different definition to everyone. Typically everyone wants a good ending—with friends and activities one enjoys.”

For Lee, it’s about having the autonomy to do something of one’s choosing, as well as being surrounded by people whom one trusts. This may be difficult for those who have spent most of their lives working—a ubiquitous story in Singapore—as the transition can be a shock.

Seemingly, to live well in advanced age is to build social networks.

“I'd like to reassure them to not be afraid to seek help—not to let their fear of burdening others stop them. Everybody needs somebody at some point. That's life. It's part of the process of cultivating a compassionate community.”

Despite being named the sixth Blue Zone, Singapore has a long journey before it becomes a true haven for ageing. Lee is motivated by the hope that by the time it’s her turn, she will feel safe to age in Singapore.

“I want to be able to fulfill my role as a caregiver and daughter well. If I can contribute resources in any capacity I can, that’s where I want to be. I’m grateful to be in this industry. Hopefully,” she said, “this work has made me a better person.”