Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Welfare Foundation awards grants for innovative research on senior citizen welfare and traffic safety

Following a rigorous selection process, the 2017 winners in Singapore are:
• Dr Neo Shu Hui, Resident at Singapore General Hospital, for her research in determining the effectiveness of incorporating visual analogue uroflowmetry score (VAUS) in primary care physicians’ evaluation process of elderly men with lower urinary tract symptoms to achieve a cost effective, easily administered and non-invasive tool that could potentially reduce unnecessary referrals to specialists;
• Dr Chong Shu-Ling, Staff Physician, Department of Emergency Medicine, at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, for her research on understanding parental knowledge and beliefs on the use (or the lack of use) of child car restraints, in order to create the right approach when communicating to parents on child car safety;
• Professor Tan Kok Kiong at National University of Singapore, for the development of a wearable, non-intrusive, and location-based fall detection monitoring system for the elderly. The wearable device utilises an accelerometer and an additional level of sound-based detection to enhance the accuracy of fall detection;
• Ms Lim Zhiying, Senior Medical Social Worker at Singapore General Hospital, for her research to better understand elderly patients’ perspectives of their illnesses and adherence (or non-adherence) to their treatment regimens, particularly those with multiple chronic illnesses and differing physical dependency who require multiple medications daily.

Mr Alan J. Wilson, Regional CEO of MSIG Holdings (Asia) Pte Ltd, commented: “We are delighted to continue serving the communities we are immersed in, by protecting the things that matter to them. Through the Foundation, we hope to offer meaningful support to advance impactful research that can address the region’s growing concerns of caring for a rapidly ageing population, and road traffic fatalities that have put at risk or claimed many lives each year.”

In 2017, a total of 193 applications were received in Japan, Singapore, and Thailand. Of these, 40 projects (including nine from Singapore and Thailand) were selected, and four from Singapore were awarded research grants worth SGD38,948.