Care for the Caregiver
Recognizing the Health Needs of the Caregiver:
the “Silent Patient”
When you provide care to a loved one, you offer a priceless gift and may feel profoundly rewarded yourself. But caregiving can also be a tremendous physical and emotional strain. You may be asked to use complex medical equipment, to change dressings and bandages, and to help your loved one with intimate bodily functions. Most likely, no one has trained you to do any of this. "A family's sense of responsibility, its love and devotion, its impulse to care are timeless," says Carol Levine, director of the Families and Health Care Project at the United Hospital Fund. "What has changed is the complexity of the systems in which a caregiver must function."
That complexity makes you, the silent caregiver, vulnerable to many health conditions associated with stress:
- In a survey of 1,000 informal caregivers, more than one-third reported a serious health condition, or rated their health as fair to poor. Members of this vulnerable group are likely to say their health has worsened since they became caregivers and that they are having difficulty providing care.
American Journal of Public Health, March 2002
- Caregiving spouses under emotional strain were 63% more likely to die than individuals not providing care, according to a four-year study of more than 800 caregivers, ages 66 to 96.
Journal of the American Medical Association, December 15, 1999
- The risk of heart disease doubled among women caring for an ailing spouse at least nine hours a week, according to a study involving 50,000 women.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, February 2003- Women who provide more than 36 hours of care to ill parents weekly are twice as likely to suffer from depression or anxiety as those who do not provide such care.
American Journal of Public Health, August 2002- "About half of all caregivers who take on intensive responsibility say that they subsequently get less exercise and need help to manage their stress.
See tools for help managing the challenges and stress of caregiving."Caregiving in the U.S.," National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, April 2004
Care for the Family Caregiver: A place to start, a resource booklet we recently published with the National Alliance for Caregiving for the White House Conference on Aging, this tool provides valuable information to help those caring for relatives and loved ones.
Seniorlink, an advisory service to help the caregiver with senior care planningFamily Caregiving: The Evidence-Based Reality of Family Caregiving,
Five facts for greater clarity around the issue of family caregiving.
- The risk of heart disease doubled among women caring for an ailing spouse at least nine hours a week, according to a study involving 50,000 women.
