Japan's financial firms grapple with how to support customers affected by dementia
Financial institutions are starting to implement measures to address issues related to their graying customer base — particularly, a growing number of dementia sufferers — to help them better manage their finances. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, elderly people hold 60 percent ...
Taiwan looks to Japan for solutions to demographic woes
Between 2012 and 2018, Taiwanese authorities closed 594 schools islandwide. They also cut thousands of classes at the remaining schools and reduced the hiring of new teachers. All were steps taken in response to an ongoing fall in enrollments — approximately 100,000 fewer students per ...
Body donations surge amid changing views of death in Japan
In what experts say is a shift in attitudes toward death in rapidly graying Japan, donations of bodies for anatomical training have increased dramatically in recent years. Some 296,000 people had offered to donate their bodies to universities as of March 31 last year, compared ...
A government advisory panel has drawn up 25 ambitious research objectives, including the fusing of machines and organisms and the establishment of artificial hibernation technology, as the government plans to sponsor research projects to realize such "moonshot" goals. The advisory panel, at its meeting on ...
Singapore promotes gardening for elderly in bid to fight loneliness
Since her mother died last year, 74-year-old Lim Yeo Hong has been living alone in a flat on the outskirts of Singapore, scavenging for cardboard scraps which she sells for a living. The only time she meets anyone is once a month when she collects ...
The real policy challenges facing Japan
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must place priority on resolving several major policy challenges confronting Japan before he tries to revise the Constitution.
Can we achieve an 'age-free' society?
It's time we end the age-driven society and pay attention to the variety and differences among people in the same demographic.
Vintage fashion: Senior runway models bridging South Korea's age divide
Aged 70 she was working 20 hours a day in a hospital just to make ends meet. Now at 75, Choi Soon-hwa is an unlikely fashion star and model in South Korea, one of a handful of seniors who have become social media and fashion ...
For some dementia patients in California, 'man's best friend' is a robot dog
A robot dog under development in California is vying to be a best friend to people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, offering comfort by responding to human touch with life-like motions. Entrepreneur Tom Stevens recently presented a test version of the robotic ...
As dementia cases rise, so a nation's character changes
"Your mother is senile, senile, senile!" The family was dining at a restaurant. Mom had gone to the rest room and Dad, in anguish, faced his two grown children. Sawako Agawa — TV personality, journalist and author — recalls the scene for Bungei Shunju magazine ...
Report on Japan pension shortfall spurs anxiety — and a closer look at the system
The Financial Services Agency earlier this month released a report on the future financial security of senior citizens that suggested people would have to save more to make up for expected shortfalls in the public pension system, sparking public anxiety and major controversy over ...
Finance Minister Taro Aso survives no-confidence motions over rejection of Japan pension report
Opposition party-submitted resolutions rebuking Finance Minister Taro Aso for his refusal to receive a report questioning the ability of the country's pension system to meet retirees' needs were voted down in the Diet on Friday. The House of Representatives rejected a no-confidence motion against Aso, ...
