UK's Princess Kate says she had to 'put on brave face' in cancer journey
Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the RHS's Wellbeing Garden at Colchester Hospital in Essex. July 2, 2025. Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS
LONDON - Kate, Britain's Princess of Wales, said on Wednesday that she had to put on a "brave face" throughout and following her cancer treatment last year, describing the ordeal as a life-changing experience.
Kate, 43, announced in March last year that she would undergo a course of chemotherapy after tests taken following major abdominal surgery revealed that an unspecified form of cancer had been present.
She completed the course of treatment in September, and said earlier this year she was in remission.
"You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment, treatment's done, then it's like, 'I can crack on, get back to normal', but actually the phase afterwards is really... difficult," Kate said during a visit to a hospital in Essex, southeast England.
Speaking to staff, patients and volunteers at the hospital, the princess emphasised the importance of support after treatment, noting that while patients may no longer be under clinical care, they often still struggle to "function normally at home" as they once did.
Kate described the cancer diagnosis and treatment as "life-changing" for both patients and their loved ones, according to PA Media, adding: "It's a rollercoaster, it's not one smooth plain".
The princess has been gradually resuming her public royal role but missed the Royal Ascot horse racing event last month, with a royal source citing her need for balance following her cancer treatment. REUTERS
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Straits Times
9 hours ago
- Straits Times
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For example, if the vision is to enhance the role of community nurses to provide more comprehensive care as early and as close to home as possible, then MOH will need need to review the nurses' scope of practice, equip them with advanced skills and create clear patterns or collaborative care. 'If, as regulators, we disallow this evolution of practice, then the needs of an ageing population will not be met,' said Mr Ong. Also, manpower upgrading will be made easier, with working nurses able to take up courses lasting a few weeks or a couple of months, and then applying them at the workplace immediately. The two polytechnics delivering three advanced and specialist diploma programmes in palliative nursing, in both part-time and full-time formats, will be shifting these programmes to a work-study format in 2027, Mr Ong said. On Monday , the 141 nurses who received the merit awards each received a medal to wear on their uniform and a cash prize of $1,000. 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As a community nurse, on any given day, she might be heading to a patient's home to assess for risk of falls or help them manage their chronic issues for instance, or to Community Health Post to do the same. Ms Megawati, a nurse clinician from NUHS Regional Health System Office, heads a team of 11 nurses who are now focusing on helping the residents in Chua Chu Kang with their health. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY 'When you step inside the home, you can see their challenges and how to help them better,' said the mother of two. Ms Megawati, who spent 18 years studying part-time for a Bachelor's degree in nursing that she obtained last year, heads a team of 11 nurses who are now focusing on helping the residents in Chua Chu Kang with their health. Ms Tan Nengping, 61, a senior nurse manager from the Health Promotion Board who leads three school health screening teams is another winner. 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Straits Times
13 hours ago
- Straits Times
From Karachi to Gaza: Pakistani start-up ships prosthetics to child war survivors
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox A technician uses a mobile phone for 3D scan of a patient before developing a prosthetic limb at Bioniks. KARACHI - As soon as eight-year-old Sidra Al Bordeeni returned from the clinic with her prosthetic arm, she jumped on a bicycle in the Jordanian refugee camp where she lives, riding for the first time since a missile strike in Gaza took her arm a year ago. Sidra was injured while sheltering at Nuseirat School, one of several Gaza schools converted into makeshift refuges from Israeli strikes. Her mother, Ms Sabreen Al Bordeeni, said Gaza's collapsed health services and the family's inability to leave at the time made it impossible to save her hand. 'She's out playing, and all her friends and siblings are fascinated by her arm,' Al Bordeeni said on the phone, repeatedly thanking God for this day. 'I can't express how grateful I am to see my daughter happy.' The arm was built over 4,000km away in Karachi by Bioniks, a Pakistani company that uses a smartphone app to take pictures from different angles and create a 3D model for custom prosthetics. Chief executive Anas Niaz said the social enterprise startup had fit more than 1,000 custom-designed arms inside Pakistan since 2021 - funded through a mix of patient payments, corporate sponsorship, and donations - but this was its first time providing prosthetics to those impacted in conflict. Sidra and three-year-old Habebat Allah, who lost both her arms and a leg in Gaza, went through days of remote consultations and virtual fittings. Then Niaz flew from Karachi to Amman to meet the girls and make his company's first overseas delivery. Sidra's device was funded by Mafaz Clinic in Amman, while donations from Pakistanis paid for Habebat's. Mafaz chief executive Entesar Asaker said the clinic partnered with Bioniks for its low costs, remote solutions and ability to troubleshoot virtually. 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'Where it's nearly impossible for healthcare professionals and patients to meet, remote treatment bridges a critical gap, making assessments, fittings, and follow-up possible without travel or specialised centres,' said Asadullah Khan, Clinic Manager at ProActive Prosthetic in Leeds, UK, which provides artificial limbs and support for trauma patients. Bioniks hopes to pioneer such solutions on a large scale but funding remains a roadblock and the company is still trying to form viable partnerships. Sidra is still adjusting to her new hand, on which she now wears a small bracelet. For much of the past year, when she wanted to make a heart, a simple gesture using both hands, she would ask someone else to complete it. This time, she formed the shape herself, snapped a photo, and sent it to her father, who is still trapped in Gaza. 'What I'm looking forward to most is using both my arms to finally hug my father when I see him,' she said. REUTERS
Straits Times
19 hours ago
- Straits Times
Smart sensors used in study to detect cognitive decline in seniors who live alone
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox SINGAPORE – Ms Julie Chia lives alone in a flat in Tampines and keeps herself active despite her advanced age. The 97-year-old feels secure each time she heads out, whether it is to the Lions Befrienders (LB) Active Ageing Centre at her void deck to play Rummy-O with her friends or nearby to buy the newspaper and her dinner. The sprightly woman is among more than 200 seniors living alone who have been recruited since 2020 for a longitudinal study looking into using smart sensor technology to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) – a condition that increases one's risk of developing dementia – in order to respond to it early. This will help seniors to age better and remain for longer in the community. 'With this (beacon sensor) on my keychain, I know that whenever I go out, someone knows. I feel more relieved,' said Ms Chia. What the researchers have gathered from the second phase of the study, with sensor data collected from 63 seniors living alone, is that the machine learning-based prediction technology is able to detect MCI at a 90 per cent accuracy rate. This is an improvement from the previous performance of 70 per cent obtained in the first phase of the study in 2020. The data for the study is generated by eight sensors placed in different parts of the participants' homes, such as the living room, under the mattress, inside their medicine box or cabinet, and on the door. A sensor resembling a tag is also attached to their keychain to help track whether the senior participants have their keys with them when they go out. Additionally, the seniors are given a wearable device to measure their daily steps and heart rate. In Ms Chia's case, the sensors were installed at her home in April 2021. Unlike a traditional video surveillance system that captures images and voices, the sensors monitor movement and daily routines discreetly, including sleep patterns, physical activity and memory lapses. They also track how often the senior moves around the flat or goes out and for how long, how well he or she sleeps, or the frequency of forgetting personal items, particularly their medications. A sensor resembling a tag is also attached to their keychain to help track whether the senior participants have their keys with them when they go out. ST PHOTO: TARYN NG The longitudinal study, called Sensors In-home for Elder Wellbeing , is led by Associate Professor Iris Rawtaer, head and senior consultant at the department of psychiatry and director of research at Sengkang General Hospital , and p rofessor of computer science Tan Ah Hwee from Singapore Management University. It is estimated that there will be 152,000 individuals living with dementia in Singapore by 2030, and 187,000 by 2050. While global study statistics vary, up to half of all people with MCI go on to develop dementia within five years, said Prof Rawtaer. In 2024, the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care found that 45 per cent of cases of dementia could potentially be delayed by addressing some of the modifiable risk factors, such as social isolation, untreated vision loss and high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, commonly known as bad cholesterol. However, many people are not even aware of experiencing MCI, the at-risk state for dementia. They seek help only after significant cognitive decline has occurred, missing the crucial window for intervention and advanced planning, said Prof Rawtaer. This is where the sensor system can help. 'Nine out of 10 times, it essentially outperforms your pen and paper routine screening instruments like your MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination) and your Moca (Montreal Cognitive Assessment),' Prof Rawtaer told The Straits Times. MMSE and Moca are brief screening tools used to assess cognitive function and detect MCI as well as mild dementia. The participants in the study go through detailed neurocognitive assessments yearly, providing the benchmark against which the machine learning models in the sensor system are tested. 'The question is whether seniors can accept the use of the sensor system. Is this intrusive? Is this inconvenient? Is this going to be something that we can scale and do in the long term in the community?' Prof Rawtaer said. Ms Chia, for instance, did not have her wearable device – a study requirement – on her on the day of the interview. A spokesman for LB, who was with her that day, said the seniors may forget to charge their wearable device. Prof Tan said that for the second phase of the study, the team developed an advanced machine learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) model to handle irrelevant or missing sensor data due to hardware failure, for instance. The AI can also explain why it flagged someone as being at risk, he said. As an example, it has learnt that people with MCI often move around less while at home and are more likely to forget to take their medication. 'At SMU, we have one data engineer and two data analysts looking at the data. Moving forward, we are thinking that we should partner with a commercial party... to be able to do this in a viable manner. It's not just the installation of the equipment but the maintenance and the day-to-day monitoring,' he said. The total installation cost of the sensor system is below $1,000. In the third planned phase of the study – for which the researchers are awaiting funding – they will test the sensors in multi-person households, and look at new digital biomarkers and how to reduce the numbers of sensors used to make the monitoring system more efficient and affordable. Beyond cognitive assessment, the smart sensor system could be expanded to support safety monitoring and health assessment, the researchers said. LB's executive director Karen Wee said the smart sensor system has a lot of potential not just in helping seniors to age well in the community, but also in enabling providers like it to better support the seniors. 'Wearables may not be something that the seniors of today are keen on, but who is to say that in 10 years' time they will not be widespread,' she said.
