Reconnecting the link between generations
ACCORDING to University Malaya’s Social Wellbeing Research Centre, Malaysia will soon become an ageing nation as the number of people above the age of 60 is expected to reach 3.5 million in 2020, and 6.3 million by 2040. As such, the demand for retirement homes or villages will likely increase in the coming years.
Nevertheless, retirement homes have always carried a stigma associated to loneliness, abandonment, loss of independence, and pitiful or patronising for the elderly, making such homes the last choice for many senior citizens. These stigmas are inflated even in Asian cultures such as Malaysia that places high focus on filial piety, where the younger generation is expected to care for the elderly.
Co-helping one another
However, living in a retirement home does not always have to carry such stigma. Several countries such as Japan, the US and the Netherlands have been testing out in small scale the concept of intergenerational care since the 1970s.
Intergenerational care works by incorporating pre-schools or day care with retirement homes. The idea arose because of the increase of the elderly who are living alone as more children are living away from their grandparents. The combination of these two groups of people will provide the relationship needs generally gained through intergenerational families who live together.
According to a 2017 article by American magazine The Atlantic, titled The Preschool inside a Nursing Home, numerous studies have linked social interaction with decreased loneliness, delayed mental decline, lower blood pressure, and reduced risk of disease and death in elders. Socialising across generations has also been
Intergenerational care works by incorporating pre-schools or day care with retirement homes. The idea arose because of the increase of the elderly who are living alone as more children are living away from their grandparents.
shown to increase the amount of smiling and conversation among older adults.
This is a particularly positive progress as a 2012 study by the University of California San Francisco reported 43% of seniors feel lonely, and identifying as a person feeling lonely comes with a 59% higher risk of declining health and a 45% higher risk of death.
The Atlantic article adds that studies have also suggested children who have early contact with older people are less likely to view them as incompetent and less likely to exhibit ageism, which is the prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age.
These intergenerational interactions also enhance children’s social and personal development, making them prone to be more comfortable around those with disabilities and impairments of all kinds than their peers who lack such experiences.
Much more to learn
Despite the advantages of intergenerational care, Malaysia has not been able to hop on the bandwagon in supporting the experiences of our elderly in retirement homes. This is because there are still many issues and challenges the Malaysian retirement home system has to iron out before it is able to implement new changes.
A 2014 study by Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Challenges in managing elderly care centres in Malaysia, cites financial, infrastructure, professionalism, collaboration and support, living arrangements, different socio-cultural backgrounds and emotional and psychological needs of the elderly people to be challenges that still need to be dealt with in the country’s retirement homes.
However, this does not mean we should give up hope that our country’s elderly can one day experience a well-rounded and well-socialised environment. Our neighbours Singapore are trying out this model with the St Joseph’s Home for the Aged and Hospice, which also includes an infant and childcare centre, and a common space provided for the two generations to interact with each other.
Hence, it is not impossible for Malaysia to see this concept reaching our shores as awareness on the advantages of intergenerational care expands throughout the globe. Marc Freedman’s article, What’s a nursing home combined with a childcare center? A hopeful model for the future of aging, on the TED website is hopeful for the success of this concept.
He says, “The idea is to use community design to re-create natural opportunities for cross-generational support — to move from programme to proximity, from concept to reality. The conscious effort is all the more striking in an Asian society where interaction and care between young and old, especially in families, occurred naturally for much of its history. But in our fast-paced, highly mobile, globally-oriented 21st-century world, there’s a need to find new ways to cultivate these time-honoured values.”