Singapore’s dementia cases rise as families grapple with missing seniors
Ian Chan’s father vanished within metres of their Bukit Panjang flat on Dec 21 last year and was found dead two days later.
Source: Channel NewsAsia · August 27, 2026 at 10:02 AM · AI-assisted report
Single-source
SINGAPORE, 27 AUGUST 2026 —
Ian Chan’s father vanished within metres of their Bukit Panjang flat on Dec 21 last year and was found dead two days later.
Market Impact
The 74-year-old, who had dementia, left his wallet with S$20 inside and could still speak clearly, Chan told Channel NewsAsia. His mother discovered the absence at 3am; Chan was told only in the afternoon. It was the third time the man had wandered off, but this time no passer-by called an ambulance. Chan searched the neighbourhood and the man’s usual haunts before breaking down at home, fearing the worst.
By Dec 23, police found the body in a park corner. The cause of death remains unknown.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health estimates the number of people living with dementia will rise from 100,000 today to 152,000 by 2030. Dementia Singapore reports an average of two missing persons with the condition each month; most are found within a day, but some vanish for longer stretches even in a densely monitored city.
Dementia impairs memory, thinking and language, leaving sufferers disorientated in familiar places, said Jinesh Mukesh Shah, consultant in the National Neuroscience Institute’s neurology department. Some forms trigger visual hallucinations that make ordinary surroundings appear threatening, Shah added. More than half of dementia patients wander at some point, according to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital; the Alzheimer’s Association in the US puts the figure at 60 per cent.
Many episodes go unreported when the person is quickly found.
To understand the caregiver’s perspective, Channel NewsAsia’s Munah Bagharib tried Dementia Singapore’s virtual reality simulation. In the scenario, “Auntie Lucy,” a 79-year-old with dementia, set out to the market but misperceived a mat as a hole and saw black spots like “insects on her skin.” The simulation was “overstimulating,” Munah said.
Her own mother, 69-year-old Azeezah Aidid, who has frontotemporal dementia, once got lost on a familiar route and kept repeating “One, three, nine,” a reference to car-park lots. Munah located her after about an hour.
Everyday activities such as supermarket trips now require constant vigilance. “Caregivers can do everything right,” Munah said. “But one missed moment is all it takes for someone with dementia to vanish.”
Japan’s Kobe introduced free dementia screening for residents aged 65 and over in 2024. Diagnosed patients can apply for a subsidised GPS tracker accurate to within 50 metres outdoors and receive 20 safety stickers with QR codes. Families register those at risk; the public can scan the codes and trigger an alert to volunteers, police and businesses. A dedicated call centre assists distressed families.
Kobe recorded 1,454 missing-person cases involving dementia or suspected dementia in 2024, and Japan averaged one disappearance every 30 minutes last year with one to two deaths daily. Kobe’s mayor, Kizo Hisamoto, said the measures aim to “create a society where everyone can be found.”
The technology has limits. When Munah used the GPS tracker to locate her producer in a crowded shopping district, the location updates were not real time, the app lacked directions and sometimes showed places the producer had not visited. “If this was me trying to locate where my mom has gone, I’d be crying, crashing out on the street,” she said. The search took about 30 minutes.
For Singapore, the challenge is to scale similar support without eroding dignity or autonomy. Dementia Singapore and the National Neuroscience Institute did not respond to requests for comment on possible local adaptations of the Japanese model.