SINGAPORE: Operating personal mobility aid (PMA) devices safely can remain a challenge for some individuals, particularly older users and those with multiple medical conditions, occupational therapists told CNA.<\/p>\n
They\u00a0said\u00a0such users may need more extensive assessment and training, even as they undergo certification under tightened rules that took effect from Monday (Jun 1).<\/p>\n
Among these new rules, PMA users must now obtain a certificate of medical need from a Singapore-registered doctor or occupational therapist unless they qualify for an exemption, such as being aged 70 or older.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Land Transport Authority, more than 1,000 such certificates have been issued so far.<\/p>\n
MORE PATIENTS COMING IN<\/p>\n
At Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), its occupational therapists \u2013 who assess PMA users on their ability to ride motorised scooters safely \u2013 have been seeing about 20 to 25 patients a week in the last few weeks before the new rules kicked in.<\/p>\n
This marked an increase of about 35 per cent compared to several months before.<\/p>\n
In some cases, users are referred by doctors who have already issued a certificate of medical need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, occupational therapists can reject the certificate if they realise these users \u2013 who were certified as they had a clear need to ride a PMA \u2013 do not have good cognitive function and are not fit for the roads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SINGAPORE: Operating personal mobility aid (PMA) devices safely can remain a challenge for some individuals, particularly older users…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500,350101],"class_list":["post-722577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-personal-mobility-aid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}