A mural depicting Samsui women in Chinatown in Singapore. Edwin Koo | Getty Images From listening devices that detect falls to " patient sitter " systems in hospitals and robots helping with exercise in care homes, Singapore is looking to artificial intelligence to help manage the health of its elderly population. By 2030, a quarter of Singaporeans will be 65 or older — in 2010, the figure was one in 10 — and it's estimated that around 6,000 nurses and care staff will need to be hired annually to meet Singapore's health workforce targets .
Technology is much needed to help fill the care gap in Singapore and elsewhere, according to Chuan De Foo, a research fellow at Singapore's Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Societies around the world are " dismally unprepared " for an aging population, Foo wrote in the science journal Frontiers last month, and with his co-authors described AI and other technologies as "pivotal forces with the potential to drive a paradigm shift in healthcare." For Foo, artificial intelligence is set to play a "huge" role in elder care in Singapore, both in terms of helping clinicians manage non-acute conditions and in overseeing administrative tasks such as monitoring the availability of hospital beds, he said in an email to CNBC.
"As the elderly in Singapore get more IT savvy, we see them turning to teleconsultations and digital tools that utilize AI technology," he said. AI is also being used to detect diseases earlier, an area of personal inter.
