{"id":26245,"date":"2025-02-24T15:51:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T07:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/?post_type=school_news&p=26245"},"modified":"2025-02-20T15:47:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T07:47:55","slug":"enhancing-quality-of-life-for-hong-kongs-elderly","status":"publish","type":"school_news","link":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/school_news\/enhancing-quality-of-life-for-hong-kongs-elderly\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Elderly Mental Health: How JC Joyage is Enhancing Lives and Reducing Suicide Rates in Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HKU\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\"HKU \u00a0 \"HKU<\/span><\/p>\n

\"HKU\u00a0 \"HKU \"HKU<\/span><\/p>\n

\"HKU<\/span><\/p>\n

The<\/strong> \u201c<\/span>JC <\/em><\/strong>JoyAge \u2013 Jockey Club Holistic Support Project for Elderly Mental Wellness\u201d (JC JoyAge)<\/em> has achieved a 92% success rate in improving elderly mental health.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Professor Terry Yat Sang Lum, Henry G. Leong Professor in Social Work and Social Administration, returned to Hong Kong in 2011 from the United States, he was troubled by the state of Hong Kong\u2019s elderly people.\u00a0 Life expectancy in Hong Kong is 88 years for women and 82 years for men \u2013 among the highest in the world \u2013 yet many of Hong Kong\u2019s elderly were struggling with mental health difficulties caused by stress, chronic health conditions and social isolation, resulting in depression rates of about 10 per cent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Lum, who has worked in elderly care for his entire career, was deeply concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people live a long life but the quality of life is not good, what\u2019s the point of this long life?\u201d he mused.<\/p>\n

A Mission to Improve the Quality of Elderly Lives<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to his ongoing social policy work, Professor Lum also started investigating practical ways to improve elderly mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health suffering significantly adversely affects the quality of life.\u00a0 So I asked myself, what can we do to really enhance the mental well-being of older people?\u201d\u00a0 The answer, it turns out, was a lot.<\/p>\n

Professor Lum\u2019s research identified two major gaps in the system.\u00a0 One was the lack of provision of mental health care outside the specialist system.\u00a0 The other was the lack of education about mental health for the very group that are most affected by it: the less educated elderly.\u00a0 He and his team set up \u201cJC <\/em>JoyAge \u2013 Jockey Club Holistic Support Project for Elderly Mental Wellness\u201d (JC JoyAge), <\/em>funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, to respond to both of these needs.<\/p>\n

JC JoyAge: A Dual-pronged Approach Embedded in Community Care<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JC JoyAge takes a two-pronged approach.\u00a0 First, it makes trained, community-based psychotherapeutic care available in every Hong Kong district for any elderly person who needs it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you feel unwell mentally, you can walk into an elderly community centre in your neighbourhood, and there are social workers who are specialised in mental health care,\u201d explains Professor Lum.\u00a0 \u201cThat means the older people no longer need to go to hospital for care \u2013 they can receive care within their own community.\u201d<\/p>\n

That leaves Hong Kong\u2019s specialist system \u2013 which counts only around 1,000 psychiatrists and psychologists for a population of 7 million \u2013 free to focus on the most critical cases, which are referred to them as necessary by the social workers and GPs working directly with the elderly.<\/p>\n

Second, the project implements a wide-ranging mental health literacy programme that targets the often illiterate or poorly educated elderly people who cannot access government-run literacy programmes.<\/p>\n

Reversing the Elderly Suicide Trend<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To date, the programme has helped more than 10,000 people, of whom 92 percent report a very significant improvement in their mental health state, including lower levels of anxiety and loneliness.<\/p>\n

Strikingly, since 2022, when the programme had expanded to all 18 districts, the elderly suicide rate started to drop, from 21 suicides per 10,000 people to just over 19.\u00a0 This is particularly noteworthy as the suicide rate of every other age group has continued to rise.<\/p>\n

In light of the evident need, Professor Lum began a pilot project in 2024 targeting people aged 45 and above, who face different life challenges, such as parenting and relationship issues.\u00a0 He is confident that the same approach, with adjusted clinical protocols, will achieve positive results.<\/p>\n

Strength through Community<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The strength of the JC JoyAge project lies in its embeddedness in the community.\u00a0 Evidence shows that provision of both specialist mental health care and community care produces the best results, as it enables both mild and serious cases to receive effective attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that we need to really trust the people, put the resources in the hands of the community and allow the community to develop their own strategy to promote mental health literacy,\u201d says Professor Lum.<\/p>\n

As of September 2024, JC JoyAge had enlisted 6,620 Ambassadors \u2013 elderly volunteers who have recovered from mental health problems themselves.\u00a0 Ambassadors receive mental health assessment training to help them identify mental health problems among their own families and neighbours.\u00a0 They bring those affected to community centres for further assessment and appropriate treatment.<\/p>\n

Almost 1,000 Ambassadors with good communication skills have received intensive training to become Peer Supporters who work alongside social workers to provide one-to-one support and companionship to people with mental health challenges.<\/p>\n

Other Ambassadors design specific mental wellness activities for their own community.\u00a0 \u201cThey know the characteristics of their neighbours,\u201d says Professor Lum.\u00a0 \u201cIf they can work together with the social worker, they can develop mental health literacy promotion from the bottom up.\u00a0 Then those messages will be able to come across easier than a top-down approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aim is to treat mental problems as soon as possible after the symptoms become apparent, he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can somehow help people when they have mild to moderate levels of mental disorder, then we can cut down the number of people who have severe mental disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nProfessor Terry Yat Sang Lum of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration and his team received the University\u2019s Knowledge Exchange Excellence Award 2024 for the project \u201cJC JoyAge \u2013 Jockey Club Holistic Support Project for Elderly Mental Wellness\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n


\nContributing Writer: Liana Cafolla<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","school_new_categories":[],"school_news_tag":[778,789],"thought_leadership_category":[258,784],"department_category":[],"class_list":["post-26245","school_news","type-school_news","status-publish","hentry","school_news_tag-academicexcellence","school_news_tag-achievement","thought_leadership_category-honours","thought_leadership_category-impact-engagement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school_news\/26245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school_news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/school_news"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"school_new_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school_new_categories?post=26245"},{"taxonomy":"school_news_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school_news_tag?post=26245"},{"taxonomy":"thought_leadership_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thought_leadership_category?post=26245"},{"taxonomy":"department_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.socsc.hku.hk\/tc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department_category?post=26245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}