Healthy Ageing: A Global Perspective
On 21st February 2024, the colloquium “Healthy Ageing: A Global Perspective" took place at the RPH Research Foundation, hosted by Western Australian Centre for Healthy Ageing (WACHA).
Professor Leon Flicker, Head of the WACHA Institute, and RPH Research Foundation Fellow Professor Anne-Marie Hill, opened the event. The event welcomed attendees gathered in-person within the RPH Research Foundation Research Facility along with colleagues online from Sun Yat-sen University, China.
Read below for a summary of the presentations delivered at the event.
Visiting Research Fellow Dr Veronique Wolter, sports scientist and sociologist at TU Dortmund University (Germany), began by presenting her research findings on the opportunities and barriers to the participation of older adults in sporting activities in Germany. The opening up of municipal players for collaboration proved to be a successful way of reaching community-dwelling people in particular and promoting leisure time activity as part of healthy ageing. Co-operation between local sports clubs and care providers is a good way of bringing together the necessary expertise and resources. In the long term, however, in addition to the structural conditions, the individual needs, characterised by social inequalities, must be taken into account.
Resident (WACHA) Research Fellow, Dr Cheng Yen Loo is a sociologist and cultural anthropologist who offered insight into the barriers and enablers to accessing social support services for older migrants aging in Australia and their family carers. Drawing upon her PhD research with Chinese migrant families from Malaysia and Singapore (aka the Straits Chinese), Dr Loo highlighted the importance of recognising the cultural and social nuances that inform family decision making and its impact for aged care service delivery. In particular, her research emphasised the need to embrace a social justice framework to craft social policy that match the needs of marginalised and culturally diverse groups of older people and their families whilst recognising the important role family care givers play in bridging the gap between the needs of their aging parents and publicly accessible support services in the community.
Mrs Wei Xin is a PhD candidate of Curtin University and a senior physiotherapist at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in China. She presented her PhD program which focuses on community-based rehabilitation for older population in China, aiming to provide evidence for the Chinese government to promote health ageing. As a result, the systematic review shows community-based rehabilitation is effective in improving physical fitness in Asian countries. More than 60% of older adults living in Guangzhou have multi-comorbidities. Patients with multi-comorbidities showed worse performance in balance, handgrip strength and transfer functions. Therefore, it is important to provide community-based rehabilitation for elderly member of the community to promote healthy ageing in China.
