Family Caregiver Alliance has a good newsletter called “Update.” The Fall ’06 issue has an interesting article on caregiver health, a topic we should all take seriously! Here’s an excerpt:
“A large and growing body of evidence has revealed that providing care for a chronically ill person can have harmful physical, mental, and emotional consequences for the caregiver. As families struggle to care for their loved ones, their own health is jeopardized.”
The article is about the availability of a Fact Sheet on this topic called “A Population At Risk.” This link might work to get to the Fact Sheet:
www.caregiver.org/caregiver/
This link might work to get to the article:
caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/
The article follows along with some highlights from the new Fact Sheet.
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FCA Introduces New Fact Sheet on Caregiver Health
Update, a newsletter of Family Caregiver Alliance
Fall 2006, Volume 23, No. 4
A large and growing body of evidence has revealed that providing care for a chronically ill person can have harmful physical, mental, and emotional consequences for the caregiver. As families struggle to care for their loved ones, their own health is jeopardized.
This important public health issue has broad implications. Medical advances, shorter hospital stays, limited discharge planning, and expansion of home care technology have placed increased costs as well as increased care responsibilities on families, who are being asked to shoulder greater care burdens for longer periods of time. To make matters worse, caregivers are more likely to lack health insurance coverage due to time out of the workforce. These burdens and health risks can hinder the caregivers’ ability to provide care, lead to higher health care costs and affect their own quality of life as well as that of the care receivers.
FCA has introduced a new Fact Sheet discussing this significant issue. It describes the impact of caregiving on the mental and physical health of the caregiver, summarizes research from a variety of sources, and offers recommendations from a health and public policy perspective.
Studies indicate that caregivers:
- suffer from high levels of stress and frustration
- show higher levels of depression
- may exhibit harmful behaviors
- are in worse physical health than noncaregivers
- may have increased risk of heart disease
- have lower levels of self-care
- may pay the ultimate price for providing careincreased mortality.
This new publication joins the FCA library of more than 60 Fact Sheets on caregiving issues, with many translated into Chinese and Spanish. All are available at no charge on the FCA website at www.caregiver.org, or send $2 for each copy to Family Caregiver Alliance, 180 Montgomery Street, Ste. 1100, San Francisco, CA 94104.
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Excerpts from:
A Population at Risk
Fact Sheet of Family Caregiver Alliance
Fall 2006
Evidence shows that most caregivers are ill-prepared for their role and provide care with little or no support.
Caregivers show higher levels of depression. Depressed caregivers are more likely to have coexisting anxiety disorders, substance abuse or dependence, and chronic disease.
Research shows that female caregivers (who comprise about two-thirds of all unpaid caregivers) fare worse than their male counterparts, reporting higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and lower levels of subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and physical health than male caregivers. According to one study, there is a dramatic increase in risk of mental health consequences among women who provide 36 or more hours per week of care to a spouse.
Caregivers suffer from high levels of stress and frustration.
Stressful caregiving situations may lead to harmful behaviors. As a response to increased stress, caregivers are shown to have increased alcohol and other substance use. Several studies have shown that caregivers use prescription and psychotropic drugs more than noncaregivers. Family caregivers are at greater risk for higher levels of hostility than noncaregivers. Spousal caregivers who are at risk of clinical depression and are caring for a spouse with significant cognitive impairment and/or physical care needs are more likely to engage in harmful behavior toward their loved one.
High rates of depressive symptoms and mental health problems among caregivers, compounded with the physical strain of caring for someone who cannot perform activities of daily living (ADLs), such as bathing, grooming and other personal care activities, put many caregivers at serious risk for poor physical health outcomes. Indeed, the impact of providing care can lead to increased health care needs for the caregiver.
Caregivers are in worse health. About one in ten (11%) caregivers report that caregiving has caused their physical health to get worse.
The physical stress of caregiving can affect the physical health of the caregiver, especially when providing care for someone who cannot transfer him/herself out of bed, walk or bathe without assistance. Ten percent of primary caregivers report that they are physically strained. Caregivers have an increased risk of heart disease. Caregivers exhibit exaggerated cardiovascular responses to stressful conditions which put them at greater risk than noncaregivers for the development of cardiovascular syndromes such as high blood pressure or heart disease.
Women who spend nine or more hours a week caring for an ill or disabled spouse increase their risk of heart disease two-fold.
Caregivers are less likely to engage in preventive health behaviors. Caregivers’ self-care suffers because they lack the time and energy to prepare proper meals or to exercise. About six in ten caregivers in a national survey reported that their eating (63%) and exercising (58%) habits are worse than before.
Caregivers pay the ultimate price for providing care—increased mortality. Elderly spousal caregivers (aged 66-96) who experience caregiving-related stress have a 63% higher mortality rate than noncaregivers of the same age. in 2006, hospitalization of an elderly spouse was found to be associated with an increased risk of caregiver death.