1Faculty of Dental Medicine, Airlangga University, Surabaya, 60115, Indonesia
Macroscopically, teeth experience changes in shape and color along with increasing age. In Indonesia around 24% of elderly people aged 65 years or older experience tooth loss. This condition was a threat to quality living elderly in living everyday life. Taking this into consideration, this study is intended to investigate the factors such as education level, frequency of brushing teeth, frequency of dental visit and illnesses (hypertension, diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease) affected the caries severity and the quality of life among the elderly of Puskesmas Jagir. The findings from this study proved that lack of awareness of maintained a healthy oral health and lack of awareness of the side-effects of medication taken to the oral health as well as low interest in visiting dental clinics are three of the major problems that deteriorate the oral health of the elderlies since the DMF-T scores (> 13) for these factors were high. Thus, the elderly need to acquire the necessary knowledge by attending counselling classes and visiting the dentist in order to apply this knowledge for a better quality of life.
Dental Caries, Elderly, Oral Health, Quality of Life
