Why Do Caregivers Need Caregivers?

I’d like to start by sharing a few things that we already know about caregiving in our country. We know, for example, that
• One in every 4 Americans is responsible for caring for an ill,elderly or needy family member or friend...
• More than 65 million Americans spend an average of 20 hours a week caring for an infirm loved one...
• More than 66 percent of family caregivers are women...
• More than a quarter of family caregivers are dissatisfied with the information given to them by their healthcare providers...
• More than 55% of family caregivers admit that the responsibilities of caregiving have taken a toll on their own health...
• And we also know that the typical caregiver is a 49-year-old married woman, who is scrambling to juggle responsibilities...

But I’d like to share a few more characteristics about “typical” caregivers:
 Juanita is 47 and works part-time for a local grocery chain. Her mother, Gladys, who suffers from dementia, lives with her, as does her teenage son, her daughter, and her infant grand-daughter. Gladys’s doctor says she needs to be in a memory unit because her condition is deteriorating, but Juanita doesn’t have the time to go searching for her best options, she can’t afford to miss any more work and she doesn’t know how they will afford it. Yesterday, Juanita scared herself when she lost her temper with Gladys.

 James is 83 years old, and he is caring full-time for his 83-year-old wife, Mary, who suffers from Parkinson’s. Their two children long ago moved out of the area for better jobs. James tries to shield the kids from the daily challenges he faces so that they don’t worry. He has home health care 2 times a week, but he doesn’t think they give the same quality of care as he does. Besides, Mary is very private. She doesn’t even want James bathing her, but he has to. Lately, James’s blood pressure has been high but he doesn’t always remember to take his medicine or keep his doctor’s appointments

 Cindy is 28 and works for the county. Up until 3 months ago, her husband Gary did too. But when a drunk driver struck him on his motorcycle, he was paralyzed from the waist down. Cindy doesn’t even know where to begin – the bills, the medications, the breathing apparatus, or the therapy schedules. She’s doing her best, and her sister helps three times a week with their 3-year-old. Gary’s coworkers have been great, but they’ve got families of their own. She can’t believe this is really her life, and she can’t even imagine what life will be like a year from now. She feels numb most of the time, except really odd things make her cry, like the thought that Gary will never again be able to shovel the snow from their driveway, how will she manage that too?

What we really know about the “typical” caregiver is that she or he could be your coworker, your neighbor, your mail carrier. The typical caregiver might very well be you today, but it almost certainly will be you at some point in the future.

National statistics paint a very stark picture for us:
 Thanks to medical advances, the odds are very great that each of us will be caring for at least one family member for an extended period of time—maybe as much as 10 years or more.
 We will render this care while we hold at least one job outside the home.
 Some of us will become caregivers even as we raise our children and grandchildren.
 Most of us will become painfully familiar with multiple healthcare providers, insurers, therapists, and nursing facilities. We will become fully immersed in healthcare bureaucracy.
 Most of us will care for an infirm loved one even as our own health begins to fail.
 And all of us, no matter when, where, or how we become caregivers, will feel under-prepared, overwhelmed, angry, anxious, impatient, inadequate, physically exhausted, and emotionally spent.

So what should each of us do today, to better prepare, to cope, and to learn from this cycle of our lives? What resources can we rely upon? And, if we are fortunate enough today not to be an active family caregiver, what can each of us do to help a caregiver continue on his/her journey?