|
 Those unpaid services are worth more than total Medicaid spending
for 2013 and also more than annual combined sales that year from the
four largest U.S. technology companies (Apple, Hewlett Packard, IBM
and Microsoft), researchers say.
An estimated 40 million family caregivers worked an average of 18
unpaid hours each week helping spouses, parents, partners and other
loved ones, AARP estimated.
Almost half of the caregivers performed complicated tasks such as
giving injections, operating medical equipment, and wound care.
“Providing care for a family member, partner, or friend with a
chronic, disabling or serious health condition – known as ‘family
caregiving’ – is nearly universal today,” lead report author Susan
Reinhard, director of public policy for AARP, said by email. “It
affects most people at some point in their lives.”
To assess the scope of unpaid care and services, Reinhard and
colleagues analyzed data from 11 surveys of family caregivers done
between 2009 and 2014.
All of these surveys included caregivers and patients over the age
of 18, and questioned participants about whether family caregivers
currently or within the past month provided help with daily
activities such as bathing or dressing or assistance with other
tasks like managing finances or preparing meals.
In 2014, 60 percent of caregivers were employed at least part-time,
and 40 percent of the working caregivers were at least 50 years old.
One analysis found that many of these workers are providing 21 hours
a week of unpaid care in addition to their paying jobs.
One in five workers left their jobs earlier than planned to help
care for a loved one, losing an estimated $300,000 in income and
benefits each, on average.
Family caregivers generally provide so much unpaid help because
their loved ones need a variety of different assistance that’s hard
to get from one provider and due to a lack of affordable
alternatives, said Carol Levine, director of the families and health
care project at the United Hospital Fund, a nonprofit research and
philanthropy organization in New York.
[to top of second column] |
“For those who provide long-term care for years and for those with
particularly demanding situations – caring for someone with
dementia, for example – the detrimental effects on caregivers’
mental and physical health, financial status, employment, and on
other family relationships have been well documented,” Levine, who
wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
Family caregivers may benefit from strengthened relationships with
their loved ones, as well as a sense of satisfaction from making it
possible for loved ones to remain at home instead of moving to an
institutional setting, Levine noted.
“There are potential upsides,” she said.
For many families, unpaid care provided to loved ones might be
scaled back if more social services and medical assistance was
available, particularly for complex tasks that can be difficult to
master without clinical training, said Barbara Given, a nursing
professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
The best time to assess resources in the community is before loved
ones become too infirm to care for themselves without help, Given,
who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“For all families, as people are aging or have chronic disease,
families should have discussions about the plans they will have for
care and discuss some of their preferences,” Given said. “They
should become aware of community resources, and they should identify
a health care professional, physician or nurses who they are able to
talk to and seek out for assistance when they do need to provide
care.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1CNn1g0 AARP Public Policy Institute, online
July 16, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
