Shorter Life Expectancy for Mentally Ill Singaporeans

Over the past century, life expectancy for people in Singapore and throughout the world has increased. Better medical care and new technologies enable early diagnosis and quick treatment of many physical issues. In fact, for Singaporeans, the average life expectancy is 82.

However, for those living with mental illness, the life expectancy is far shorter. Most of these people die in their sixties. Between 2015 and 2016, 891 patients died at the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore; and the average age for those patients was 64.3. The lower life expectancy for mentally ill citizens is the same in other countries around the world, including the United States.

One Singaporean woman in her sixties battled schizophrenia for most of her life, experiencing delusions, hallucinations, and other symptoms. The constant stress on her body eventually led to heart disease, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes, causing her death by sepsis when she was in her sixties.

“Many of our patients say they don’t want to see the general physician because they feel they are treated differently (because of their condition),” said Adjunct Associate Professor Daniel Fung, chairman on the IMH Medical Board. “They also don’t want to seek medical care because they don’t want sensitive health information to be shared.”

Fearing repercussions in their professional and personal lives, these individuals avoid going to a doctor at all; so their physical health suffers along with their mental health.

News Feed from Adelphi Psych Medicine Clinic

Source: Today Online, 13 Sept 2017

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