Key Considerations in Caring for the Elderly

Jakarta (ANTARA) — The Deputy Chairperson of the Central Board of the Indonesian Society of Internal Medicine Physicians (PAPDI), Dr Muhadi, Sp.PD, K-Kv, FINASIM, M.Epid, has set out a number of things to consider when living with or caring for the elderly.

“Yes, of course the elderly are people who have the right to a decent life, including the right to be healthy,” Muhadi said when met by ANTARA after the EIMED community event in Jakarta on Saturday.

Muhadi said that, like anyone else, elderly people may experience various emergency situations triggered by both internal and external factors.

In this regard, he continued, the internal factors that need to be watched for and that could trigger an emergency stem from the elderly person’s own health condition.

“For example, they may have an illness that suddenly worsens,” he added.

He cited examples of external factors within the home, such as poor lighting or slippery floor surfaces that could cause an elderly person to fall easily.

“So those who live with and care for the elderly must pay attention to both external and internal factors. We need to fix the external factors as well as the internal ones,” he said.

“Caring for the elderly is certainly different from caring for children or caring for sick people who are not elderly,” he added.

Previously, according to 2025 data from the Ministry of Health and Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of elderly residents (aged over 60) has reached 34 million, or nearly 12 per cent of the total population.

The government continues to strengthen various promotive and preventive programmes to curb non-communicable diseases, the leading causes of disability and death in old age, such as early disease detection through the free health check scheme (CKG), which around 6.8 million elderly people have already utilised.