November is National Caregivers Month!

 

November is National Caregivers Month! To celebrate and show gratitude for our caregivers, I dedicate this blog post to you! First, I want to share some caregiver nomenclature to help everyone understand more about this role.

Caregiver – A person providing care for another. Also known as care partner or care provider.

Care Recipient – The person receiving care.

Informal Caregivers – This means uncompensated or unpaid caregivers, which make up the bulk of caregiving roles. Most are spouses and a whopping 61% work outside the home while concurrently providing care. They are spouses, partners, relatives, friends, and neighbors, providing shopping, food prep, laundry, housework, transportation, and helping with medications. Spousal caregivers are also known as “No Choice Caregivers,” as they are caring for a spouse out of obligation and convenience.

Formal Caregivers – These are employees of a company that provides care inside the home. They typically help people who need a higher level of care. They help with feeding, dressing, grooming, walking, bathing, toileting, transferring, and in some cases provide skilled care.

Long-Distance Caregivers – They are geographically distanced and not able to provide daily in-person support.

Sandwich Generation Caregivers – About one-fourth of caregivers are taking care of people older and younger than they are. Thus, they are “sandwiched” between two other cohorts of care recipients. They are typically Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) caring for parents/grandparents and children/grandchildren. The majority of sandwich generation caregivers are employed outside the home. Unfortunately, the majority are not engaging in self-care because they have no time for it.

Caregiver exhaustion and burnout are dangerous. Health related stress, difficulties balancing family/work, guilt, depression, isolation, and fatigue is common. Further, exhausted caregivers make mistakes with medication, potentially harming the care recipient. Caregivers don’t realize they are burned out and continue providing care. They put off their diagnostics, teeth cleaning, routine exams, and often become sick and die due to neglect. 

I recommend that caregivers take the Zarit Short Form assessment monthly, score it, and keep track of scores. The quantitative assessment is an accurate and non-judgmental method of keeping tabs on mental and physical health. Take the completed forms to your healthcare provider and have a discussion. I have attached the Zarit Short Form below. Feel free to copy it and use it monthly.

Although it makes sense that caregivers need support groups, they have no time and therefore avoid them. Online caregiving support groups have been embraced and they have become popular, especially among long-distance caregivers. They are typically a Facebook closed group.

The medical system in the United States is an acute care model of fragmented services and navigating the system is overwhelming. Consequently, caregiver resources are scattered all over the internet. I recommend using government agencies and credible sites for conducting research. Avoid dot coms, as those sites have a profit motive, and their stats are not reliable.

Readers, we need to compensate informal caregivers. The National Partnership for Women and Families estimates that “unpaid caregiving is worth $305.01 billion a year for men and $626.57 billion for women….In other words, the caregiving time gap costs women an extra $321.56 billion a year” (NPWF, 2023). Why? Women caregivers outnumber men. Taking time away from the workforce has long-range impacts on career progression, promotions, and lifetime reported wages, which ultimately impact financial security.

Think about how many billions a year caregivers provide help annually when you consider voting and vote for those politicians who embrace compensation.

Finally, please thank a caregiver this month. Take them out to lunch, take over their duties for an hour or a day. Buy them flowers. Do whatever you can to tell them, “You’re special and I value what you do.”

 

AARP Caregiving Facts and Tips 2020: https://www.aarp.org/ppi/info-2020/caregiving-in-the-united-states.html

AARP Costs of Unpaid Caregiving: https://press.aarp.org/2023-03-08-New-Report-Highlights-Increasing-Cost-of-Family-Caregiving-in-the-US

 

American Psychological Association Caregiving Resources: https://www.apa.org/topics/caregiving

 

CDC: Caregiving for Family and Friends, A Public Health Issue: https://www.cdc.gov/aging/caregiving/caregiver-brief.html

 

Cleveland Clinic resources on Caregiver Burnout: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9225-caregiver-burnout

 

Higginson, I. J., Gao, W., Jackson, D., Murray, J., & Harding, R. (2010). Short-form Zarit Caregiver Burden Interviews were valid in advanced conditions. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 63(5), 535–542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.06.014

 

National Council on Aging Caregiver Month of Support: https://www.ncoa.org/page/national-family-caregivers-month

 

Online Caregiver Support Groups: https://www.caregiver.org/connecting-caregivers/support-groups/  Caring Bridge: https://www.caringbridge.org/resources/caregiver-support-groups/

 

Zarit Short Form https://drive.google.com/file/d/16mtDpZdUIC88kU-5yHeDNyVIre15GgYl/view