Objective: To pilot a digital health technologies ecosystem known as project SingaporeWALK (earables and pps for ommunity iving and nowledge) that build capacity in older adults, senior center managers, health coaches, and caregivers in using health technologies (eg, wearables, apps, exergames) collaboratively in a gamified way for active aging.
Materials And Methods: The SingaporeWALK ecosystem was set up through 3 initiatives: (1) co-developing technologies with stakeholders; (2) raising digital literacy and capacity building; and (3) cultivating community and intergenerational bonding for active aging through gamified technology use.
Results: Significant improvements in older adults' self-reported physical and mental health post-intervention were observed.
This study assesses the impact of single-player and multiplayer exergaming modes on improving exercise intentions, reduction of fear of falling, and emotional well-being among older adults, primarily from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds-a group often underrepresented in exergame research. We engaged 48 participants, primarily from low-SES communities in Singapore for a 4-week community-based exergaming intervention. Participants were divided into four groups as follows: (1) conventional exercise alone, (2) exergames alone, (3) exergames with a health coach, and (4) exergames with a peer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is a pressing need to include older individuals in health education and uncover their specific needs. Leveraging the advantages of digitized health education, this study employed a participatory approach to engage community-dwelling older adults in co-creating a synchronous tele-education program, with dementia as the focus due to its rising prevalence and associated stigma in Singapore. Our findings demonstrate the preliminary effectiveness and feasibility of tele-education.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Digital health technologies have the potential to improve health outcomes for older adults, especially for those recovering from stroke. However, there are challenges to developing these technologies, such as data absenteeism (where older adults' views are often underrepresented in research and development) and technology chauvinism (the belief that sophisticated technology alone is the panacea to addressing health problems), which hinder their effectiveness.
Objective: In this study, we aimed to address these challenges by developing a wearable glove integrated with culturally relevant exergames to motivate older adults to exercise and, for those recovering from stroke, to adhere to rehabilitation.
Objective: Sleep quality is a crucial concern, particularly among youth. The integration of health coaching with question-answering (QA) systems presents the potential to foster behavioural changes and enhance health outcomes. This study proposes a novel human-AI sleep coaching model, combining health coaching by peers and a QA system, and assesses its feasibility and efficacy in improving university students' sleep quality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Conversational agents (CAs) or chatbots are computer programs that mimic human conversation. They have the potential to improve access to mental health interventions through automated, scalable, and personalized delivery of psychotherapeutic content. However, digital health interventions, including those delivered by CAs, often have high attrition rates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrawing upon the social amplification of risk (SARF) and the issue-attention cycle framework, we examined the amplification of COVID-19 risk-related tweets through (a) topics: key interests of discussion; (b) temperament: emotions of tweets; (c) topography (i.e., location); and (d) temporality (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Assoc Inf Sci Technol
October 2022
We conducted an exploratory study of the links found in Twitter tweets. Our results showed that the largest category of tweet links was social media platforms followed by alternative news sites. Government agencies and educational institutions were under-represented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: An increasing aging population has become a pressing problem in many countries. Smart systems and intelligent technologies support aging in place, thereby alleviating the strain on health care systems.
Objective: This study aims to identify decision-making factors involved in the adoption of smart home sensors (SHS) by older adults in Singapore.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
December 2021
Exergames are now often implemented among older adults for health purposes. This study aimed to investigate whether playing Kinect and Wii exergames has effects on older adults' physical fitness and psychological perceptions towards exergames. A total of 23 older participants aged above 60 years were recruited and randomly assigned into two groups, in which they played either Kinect or Wii Bowling exergames for three sessions in one week.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Assoc Inf Sci Technol
October 2021
In the fight against COVID-19, the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine announcement marked a significant turning point. Analysing the topics discussed surrounding the announcement is critical to shed light on how people respond to the vaccination against COVID-19. Specifically, since the COVID-19 vaccine was developed at unprecedented speed, different segments of the public with a different understanding of the issues may react and respond differently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnalyzing and documenting human information behaviors in the context of global public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic are critical to informing crisis management. Drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, this study investigates how three types of peripheral cues-content richness, emotional valence, and communication topic-are associated with COVID-19 information sharing on Twitter. We used computational methods, combining Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling with psycholinguistic indicators obtained from the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count dictionary to measure these concepts and built a research model to assess their effects on information sharing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The rising incidence of chronic diseases is a growing concern, especially in Singapore, which is one of the high-income countries with the highest prevalence of diabetes. Interventions that promote healthy lifestyle behavior changes have been proven to be effective in reducing the progression of prediabetes to diabetes, but their in-person delivery may not be feasible on a large scale. Novel technologies such as conversational agents are a potential alternative for delivering behavioral interventions that promote healthy lifestyle behavior changes to the public.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The risk of development of chronic diseases related to poor nutrition increases with age. In the face of an aging population, it is important for health care sectors to find solutions in delivering health services efficiently and effectively to middle-aged and older adults.
Objective: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to consolidate the literature that reported the effectiveness of eHealth apps in delivering nutritional interventions for middle-aged and older adults.
Background: Subthreshold depression is a common mental disorder in late life. Increasing studies have supported the positive effects of exergames to subthreshold depression. The current study aims to investigate how play mode potentially affects exergames' effects on subthreshold depression among older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined how different types of social interaction and competitive information in exergaming affect older adults' motivation and attitude toward playing exergames. A 2 (time: pre- vs. posttest) × 3 (social interaction: play alone vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The internet has become a primary source of information for many individuals especially those with chronic diseases. This study aims to understand and compare the health seeking behaviour using mobile devices among individuals with diabetes and between a high (Singapore) and middle (Malaysia) income country.
Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted among people with diabetes in Malaysia and Singapore.
Background: Conversational agents, also known as chatbots, are computer programs designed to simulate human text or verbal conversations. They are increasingly used in a range of fields, including health care. By enabling better accessibility, personalization, and efficiency, conversational agents have the potential to improve patient care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne major gap in existing health communication research is that few studies have synthesized findings from the literature to map out what are the key factors related to workplace (a) safety awareness, (b) safety risks, (c) health awareness, and (d) health risks. This study bridges the gap by systematically reviewing what these organizational, cultural, and individual-level factors are, and examine the impact of workplace safety and health publications using traditional and alternative metrics in academic and non-academic settings. Through an iterative process of coding, the results revealed six categories of organizational (management commitment, management support, organizational safety communication, safety management systems, physical work environment, and organizational environment), two cultural (interpersonal support and organizational culture), and four individual-level (perception, motivation, attitude, and behavior) factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe juxtaposition of a young city-state showing relative maturity as a rapidly aging society suffuses the population aging narrative in Singapore and places the "little red dot" on the spotlight of international aging. We first describe population aging in Singapore, including the characteristic events that shaped this demographic transition. We then detail the health care and socioeconomic ramifications of the rapid and significant shift to an aging society, followed by an overview of the main aging research areas in Singapore, including selected population-based data sets and the main thrust of leading aging research centers/institutes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The behavior of medication nonadherence is distinguished into primary and secondary nonadherence. Primary nonadherence (PNA) is not as thoroughly studied as secondary nonadherence.
Objective: To explore and synthesize contributing factors to PNA based on the existing body of literature.
Background: Recently, many studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of exergames on the social well-being of older adults.
Objective: The aim of this paper is to synthesize existing studies and provide an overall picture on the social effects of exergames on older adults.
Methods: A comprehensive literature search with inclusive criteria was conducted in major social science bibliographic databases.
Objective: This study reports the development and psychometric evaluation of the Smartphone for Clinical Work Scale (SCWS) to measure nurses' use of smartphones for work purposes.
Methods: Items were developed based on literature review and a preliminary study. After expert consultations and pilot testing, a 20-item scale was administered in January-June 2017 to 517 staff nurses from 19 tertiary-level general hospitals in Metro Manila, Philippines.