A National Profile Of Family And Unpaid Caregivers

The challenge America now faces is the number of people reaching retirement will double in number by 2030, and the U.S. population will increase almost 20 percent ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). The goal is for the elderly to maintain and live with independence and dignity, as well as, provide a wide range of professional health and social service expertise, home care, and residential support and services that will be needed ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). Since the number of caregivers needed for this population will not be able to meet the demands other resolutions are considered necessary.

In the U.S, one in four will be aged 60 years and older by 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau). This represents an overwhelming number of people who will either be in the caretaker role or be the ROC. Like today, most of the care will be provided by informal unpaid caregivers. The number of informal unpaid caregivers is expected to rise from 20 million in 2000 to 37 million in 2050 (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation [ASPE], 2003). Because of the burden of care giving, many caregivers will experience depression, poor health and quality of life (Etters, Goodall, & Harrison, 2008). Their well-being is an important public health concern.

Sorrell, J. M. (2014). Moving Beyond Caregiver Burden: Identifying Helpful Interventions for Family Caregivers. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services. doi:10.3928/02793695-20140128-05

“Caregivers fulfill an important role not only for those that they assist, but for society as a whole. While this care is unpaid, its value has been estimated at 257 billion dollars annually. (Arno, P.S. Economic Value of Informal Caregiving. Annual Meeting of the American

Millions of people are in the role of a part or full time caregiver in the U.S to family members who have a serious illness or disability. This a a very challenging and demanding role that needs to be recognized and appreciated.

A study that used data from the National Long-Term Care Survey (NLTCS) was conducted at the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University to look at who receives in-home care from a sample of 2428 adults. They found that overall the odds of receiving at least one hour of home care services were about 2 times greater for older people with family incomes over $75,000 per year and at the same time, the odds for receiving the same services for individuals with family incomes over $30,000 were .22 times the odds of families in the lowest income category (Alexander L. Janus1* and John Ermisch2). The same study showed that 63% of caregivers were paid by personal sources and 28% by Medicaid (Alexander L. Janus1* and John Ermisch2). This means that only 9% of the caregivers work with individuals that fall between the highest income category and the lowest income category further showing the lack of HCBS services accessible to the population of people 65 and older who do not fall in the middle income

The policy that will be analyzed is the federal Older American Act Title III-E, which was approved by the Congress in 2000. It regulates National Family Caregiver Support Programs (NFCSP), a categorical non-income-tested program, aiming to provide direct services to informal family caregivers. Under the federal administration from AoA, the NFCSP is carried out through a network of 56 State Units on Aging (SUAs), 655 Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) and local public or private institutions. Specifically, AAAs provide five-category services to caregivers by using the allocated NFCSP funding—information regarding services, assistance for accessing services, counseling/support groups/training, short-term respite and supplement services on a limited basis.

Nevertheless, by 2050, there will be a dearth of formal and informal elder caregivers to administer assistance to the projected 88.5 million Americans age 65 and older who will require eldercare (Vincent & Velkoff 2010). In 2010, the “family caregiver support ratio” was seven potential caregivers for every person age 80 and older, who were in the high-risk care years (Vincent & Velkoff, 2010). Concurrently, it was the year the caregiver support ratio peaked and began an abrupt downturn, which will significantly impact demand for long-term eldercare support for older adults for decades to come (Redfoot, Feinberg, & Houser, 2013). Therefore, the pool of the family caregivers support ratio will begin to rapidly decline to 4 to 1 by 2030,

Moreover, to date, there have been little, if any, formal exploration of African American informal elder caregivers’ advocate/leader self-identification. Moreover, Montgomery (2009) argues that research support for informal caregivers have not been successful due to the inconsistencies in the caregivers’ experiences. To understand the complexities of African American eldercare, it is important that this qualitative narrative study is conducted to capture lived experiences of former and extant African American informal elder caregivers to offer a platform where their stories and voices may be heard.

When your senior loved one needs care, it is not uncommon for loved ones to rally around and provide support. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimate that there are nearly 35-40 million senior caregivers in the United States. Of these caregivers, 90 percent of them are family members and loved ones. Despite our very best intentions, however, not everybody can provide all of the assistance needed for their senior loved one. In these circumstances, in-home caregivers become essential.

The Frail Elderly – represent older individuals with multiple comorbidities, and/or who require assistance with activities of daily living due to some form of mental and/or physical deterioration. The population of both the elderly (over 65) and the oldest-old (over 85) is projected to dramatically increase in the upcoming years. The baby-boom generation who recently entered retirement in 2011 are projected to double the over 65 populations in upcoming years and increase the over 80 populations by 110 percent. In addition, demographic patterns of this generation indicate that they are statistically more likely to have complex family structures due to high divorce rates, and more females in the workforce. In addition this generation is less likely to be married and have fewer children. All these factors collectively influence the caregiving process and make informal caregiving more complex and much harder to accomplish. Furthermore, this generation is unprepared for the expenses associated with the LTC needs

CRA is a well-developed and well-tested instrument developed by Given et al. in 1992, USA (Nijboer, Triemstra, Tempelaar, Sanderman, & Bos, 1999; Persson et al., 2008). It is consisted of five subscales of disrupted schedule (5 items), financial problems (3 items), lack of family support (5 items), health problems (4 items), and the impact of caregiving on caregiver’s self-esteem (7 items) to assess informal caregivers’ self-perceived caregiving experiences (Given et al., 1992). The assessment tool contains five subscales and rates each item from the subscales based on 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Every subscale will have a sum score by adding the item score, then divided the sum score with the number of items to get a mean-item score (Grov, Fosså, Tønnessen, & Dahl, 2006). The validity and

The older adult population in the United States has steadily increased thanks to technology and medical advances. While this definitely is an undeniable achievement, it also creates some challenges that society was not as prevalent to face before. Now that people are living longer it’s also means that often times family members are becoming caregivers to their loved ones during their so called golden years. Not only may it be difficult to care for a loved one, but it also becomes even more burdensome when their loved has a disability. In fact “dementia is one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people worldwide.” (2016). Fortunately there are adult day centers that serve people with dementia and provide services that can benefit them. However many times caregivers are forgotten about and aren’t provided services that can also benefit them as well. While it does take a bit of pressure off of the caregivers while their loved ones are at the day center, it does not eliminate all the other effects. Many people may not be aware that there are detrimental effects that a caregiver may experience as a result of caring for someone with dementia.

Methods: The Persian version of the Zarit caregiver burden interview (ZBI) was used to evaluate level of burden in caregivers through structured face-to-face interviews in 163 SCI individuals and their caregivers referred to receive outpatient rehabilitation.

Summarize: In the United States, women tend to be the primary caregiver more than men, but usually types of support are divided among multiple caregivers by gender role division. Adult children usually provide three types of support. The first is emotional. This involves taking time to listen, visit with, and provide an opportunity for social interaction to the aging parent. The second type of support involves direct services. These services include medication management, grocery supply, and cleaning that the aging parent is unable to perform alone. The third type of support is assistance with support services. This means that the adult child provides help with meals or management of social security, insurance, or in-home healthcare for the