Dental caries experience of elderly people living in "Pondok" in Kelantan

Limited information is available about the oral health of elderly people living in "Pondok" in Kelantan. This study aimed to assess the dentition status of elderly population staying in Islamic Religious Community Setup, "Pondok" in Kelantan. A cross sectional study involving 369 elderly people was carried out. A simple random sampling method was utilized for the selection of the subjects. Oral examination was done to assess the dentition status and data was analyzed using SPSS 11.5 version. The response rate was 95.6%. Majority of the subjects were edentulous (81.0%). The mean number of natural teeth, functional natural teeth, decayed teeth (D), missing teeth (M) and teeth indicated for extraction (X) were 3.22 (SD 7.54), 2.75 (SD 6.70), 0.06 (SD 0.48), 28.80 (SD 7.51) and 0.41 (SD 1.60) respectively. Among 70 dentate subjects, the mean number of natural teeth, functional natural teeth, occluding pair of functional natural teeth, decayed teeth (D), missing teeth (M), teeth indicated for extraction (X) and DMFX(T) index were 17.1 (SD 8.00), 14.5 (SD 8.11), 6.3 (SD 4.22), 0.3 (SD 1.06), 15.1 (SD 8.20), 2.2 (SD 3.14) and 17.6 (SD 8.08) respectively. There was no teeth had been filled (F). The proportion of subjects having minimum 20 functional natural teeth was 7.3%. The above results indicate that dental caries status of elderly people living in "Pondok" in Kelantan was unsatisfactory with high percentage of edentulism, contributing to the high value of the mean DMFX(T) index, 29.3 (SD 6.63).