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What does it mean to be responsible for a sick, frail or demented loved one when you have no idea how to take care of them properly and nobody is assigned to guide you? What do you do when you have no telephone assistance or home health-care visits? Welcome to the new normal. The economic value of family caregiving last tracked in the United States in 2006 was estimated at $350 billion. To put that number in perspective, it’s worth more than what we spent on Medicare in 2005 which was $300 billion!
This means right now, if people weren’t volunteering their time – at great personal, physical, emotional and financial to take care of elderly, disabled or otherwise medically challenged individuals, our medical care system would collapse under its own weight. Nursing homes alone would be unable to handle the influx of elderly citizens who are currently receiving care from their family and friends.
Currently, studies show, three-quarters of those who remain in their homes depend solely on family and friends to meet their day-to-day needs with no professional support whatsoever. An estimated 33 million Americans (one-tenth of the population of the United States) are an essential part of the healthcare industry. With medical care soaring and the number of people living to the age of 85, more and more citizens are unable to meet their health needs. Overburdened and overpriced, hospitals send clients home as soon as legally and medically possible.
This cost to caregivers can be staggering since most of us, yes, I include myself because I care for my autistic son and my wife who is now on an at-home dialysis system, are often formally untrained, have little access to trained professionals and often no real means to pay for the services needed.
One of the unmentioned costs of such at-home care is the declining psychological, physical and emotional health of the caregivers. The AARP, the Family Caregiver Alliance, the Council on Social Work Education, the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy and the American Journal of Nursing have engaged in a symposium to address this crisis. But even with all of these organizations involved, the bulk of the responsibility will still fall on individual caregivers to do the research to find resources to help them in their task. When did the medical care of our citizenry fall upon the least trained members of society – their families?
If this is going to become an expectation of the medical industry, then this entire process needs to be reviewed, improved, and holes in this not-system of medical care need to be addressed as more citizens age, live longer and struggle with a variety of long-term ailments. Having a member of your family in declining health shouldn’t mean the caregivers have to die along with their family member under the increased strain of caring for them.
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Let’s talk about this.
Are you a caregiver? Were you given any training before you took on the task of taking care of your charge? Do you care for immediate family or are you involved in the care of friends or other “elder orphans.”
What are your strategies for making care-giving less mentally or emotionally stressful? How are you managing your own health while you juggle your increased responsibilities?
Do you have a support network of professionals you can draw upon? How did you build it?
Do you have friends or family who can help with the duties required, especially for family members whose capacities are significantly reduced, such as Alzheimer’s or severely autistic individuals?
Have the costs of providing care-giving put a strain on your personal finances? What strategies did you use to cope with the economic stresses?
When you’re ready to submit, click the red box, below.
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More on Caregiving and being the caregiver, here on GMP.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Thank you for this. I don’t have a new submission to send at the moment, but I have three pieces already on GMP related to Alzheimer’s. One of them, called ”’Notes to Self…’ specifically a dresses the caregiver experience.
–Posted from an email response– Hello Thaddeus, I came across your post on The Good Men Project “Who Cares for the Caregiver?”, and I wanted to thank you for making the effort. I hope it inspires a torrent of submissions. Part of why we (people/caregivers) have so little support is because we don’t talk publicly, socially about our care efforts and experiences. Our silence is isolating. We ourselves don’t talk about our situations because we’ve not heard others talk about it. We assume therefore that our situation is unique, that we’ve “done something wrong” to be stuck in challenging situations… Read more »