Most health information in Sri Lanka is written for clinicians, or written in English. Very little of it reaches the person actually doing the caring, at home, at eleven at night.
වැඩිහිටි ඔබට වෙද්ය උපදෙස් is a book about ageing by Dr Sithira Senevirathne, Board Certified Consultant Geriatrician and Clinical Director at Aegis Health. It explains what changes in the body with age, and what a family can do about it at home, in plain Sinhala and grounded in evidence.
වයසත් සමඟ ශරීරයේ සිදුවන වෙනස්කම්, ඒ ගැන නිවසේදී කළ හැකි දේ, සරලව සහ සාක්ෂි මත පදනම්ව.
Why the language matters more than the subject
Eighteen percent of Sri Lankans are already over sixty, and by 2041 it will be one in four. Almost all of them are cared for at home, by a daughter or a son with no clinical training and no realistic way to get any.
A geriatrician writing for that reader, in Sinhala, at a price a pensioner can pay, is more useful than most of what gets called thought leadership.
Search for guidance on dementia, on falls, on the medication list that has quietly grown to eleven tablets a day, and what comes back is written for doctors or written in English. Both are barriers. The person who needs it most is the one least likely to get past either.
What is in it
The book covers the changes that come with age and what can be done about them in the home rather than in a hospital. It is written to be read by a family, not consulted by a clinician, and it stays inside the evidence rather than reaching past it.
The book
- Title වැඩිහිටි ඔබට වෙද්ය උපදෙස්
- Author Dr Sithira Senevirathne, Board Certified Consultant Geriatrician
- Language Sinhala
- Publisher Sadeepa
- Price Rs. 950
- Where Sadeepa bookshops and leading bookstores island wide
At the launch
Joining the launch in Colombo were Prof Hemantha Perera, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital and Postgraduate Centre, and Dr M. K. Sampath Indika Kumara, Deputy Director General of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka.
Photographs by Prabath Gunasekara, Pixel by Prabath, used with permission.
Why Aegis is pleased about it
Aegis exists because elder care in Sri Lanka is arranged informally and managed by families on their own. A book that hands those families accurate information in their own language does the same work the clinic does, at a scale a clinic cannot reach. Congratulations Sithira.
Sources. Population over sixty: Department of Census and Statistics, reported September 2026. One in four by 2041: UNFPA Sri Lanka projection.