Receiving Help: Caregivers’ Lives May Depend on It

I recently took a course on issues and resources for caregivers of dementia patients. Several things I learned in the class startled me:

• Approximately 44 million Americans are unpaid caregivers to older people or adults with disabilities. That’s 18% higher than the population of California in 2010, our most populated state.
• Often unprepared for the demands of caregiving, more than one-third of caregivers suffer from poor health themselves (including heart attack/heart disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis), at nearly twice the rate of noncaregivers.
• According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, caregivers commonly suffer from burnout, “a physical, emotional, and mental condition marked by any combination of excessive stress, depression, anxiety, anger, guilt, irritability, diminished satisfaction, relationship conflicts, lowered immunity, and excessive use of medications or other substance.”
• Shorter hospital stays tax family caregivers, requiring them to provide higher levels of care at home than in the past.
• Many caregivers are uninsured because the time needed to care for their loved ones prevents them from holding a job that offers health insurance benefits.
• Some 40 to 70% of caregivers have clinically significant symptoms of depression, and these persist or even worsen after the care-receiver has been placed in a nursing home.
• Caregivers are more inclined to smoke, consume more saturated fat, miss doctor’s appointments, and fail to refill prescription drugs than noncaregivers. (Source: http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver)

Are you a caregiver? How about someone you know? Encourage them to accept all the help that’s available. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to care for our elderly and disabled. Begin by putting the caregivers you know on my mailing list (email me or visit my website to sign them up).