Singapore is ageing rapidly. Whereas ageing symbolises advancements that the country has made in public health and medicine over the past few decades, it has brought new concerns regarding care for the elderly, and especially in the last years or months of life. A report commissioned by the Lien...

Singapore is experiencing an unprecedented age shift as the post-war baby boomers turn 65 years in 2012. Currently there are 378,700 people aged 65 and above, and these numbers are estimated to go up to 600,000 by 2020. These growing elderly population have multiple coexisting medical conditions which are...

In ischaemic stroke, acute reperfusion therapy aims to recanalise arterial obstruction leading to salvage of hypoperfused cerebral tissue with the goal of improving clinical outcomes. Reperfusion treatments include intravenous thrombolysis with alteplase which is licensed within the narrow therapeutic window of 4.5 hours, novel intravenous fibrinolytics which are under...

Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) measures are increasingly being incorporated into clinical research and practice as a tool to understand, from the patients’ perspective, the impact of a disease on their physical, mental and social well-being. The Medical Outcomes Short-Form 36 (SF-36) Questionnaire is arguably the most commonly used...

Thoracolumbar junction vertebrae are particularly vulnerable in traumatic injuries and up to 90% of all spinal fractures occur in this area. Treatment of thoracolumbar fractures has been a controversial subject for many years. Non-operative management recommended by some authors is effective when there is no evidence of neural compression...