Call to Action: Strategic Spatial Intervention Program (SSIP) for Improving the Spatial Reasoning and Navigational Skills of Older Adults (original) (raw)

2023, Technical Report: Research Proposal, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Aging is a global phenomenon, with the world's population getting older as a whole. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people aged 60 years and older is expected to double by 2050, and by 2100, it is projected to triple (WHO, 2022). This trend is also reflected in the demographics of Singapore. Which has seen a steady increase in the proportion of older adults in its population over the past few decades. If this aging trend continues, a quarter of Singapore citizens is expected to be 65 years and older by the year 2050 (Malhotra et al., 2019). A major inconvenience that comes with normal biological aging relates to the noticeable declines in spatial navigation in the general subpopulation of older adults aged 60 years and older. Spatial navigation, by definition, refers to one’s innate ability to navigate and find destinations in his/her everyday physical environments. Over the past decade, a series of important research studies by Zhong (me) and colleagues provided some rigorous and reliable findings showing that spatial navigation abilities decline with increasing age, impairing cognitive functions that are crucial for daily living, such as attention, executive functioning, fluid intelligence, long-term and working memories (Mollusky…Zhong, Magnusson, 2023; Reynolds, Zhong, et al., 2019; Zhong et al., 2017; Zhong & Moffat, 2016, 2018). For many years, I have stressed the importance of understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms subserving these age-related declines in spatial navigation out of my personal convictions that such an understanding can engender significant applied implications for older adults' well-being and quality of life (Mollusky et al., 2023; Zhong, 2022; Zhong & Moffat, 2018). Thence, in this proposal, I argue for the urgency of designing strategic training or intervention methods to attenuate declines in spatial navigation among the elderly, an effort which I hope can bring about significant improvements in older adults' overall independence of movement and psychological well-being (see also Zhong, 2022, for a detailed discussion). [COPYRIGHT CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, J. Y. ZHONG 2023]