Family caregivers function as extensions of health care systems, performing complex medical and therapeutic tasks, and ensuring that recipients comply with care. Caregivers, often family members, are people who regularly care for a child or adult who is sick, elderly, or has a disability. Family caregivers care for their loved ones every day, including those in need of Home Care near Cranberry Township PA. They help with daily tasks, provide emotional support, and help with anything your loved one may need. Family caregivers function as extensions of health care systems, performing complex medical and therapeutic tasks, and ensuring that recipients comply with care. Caregivers, often family members, are people who regularly care for a child or adult who is sick, elderly, or has a disability. Family caregivers care for their loved ones every day, including those in need of Home Care near Cranberry Township PA. They help with daily tasks, provide emotional support, and help with anything your loved one may need.
Some government programs pay family members or friends of people with disabilities to help them with daily activities. This may include personal care, administering medications, cooking, and cleaning. If a person with a disability is already receiving Medicaid, their state may allow a family member or friend to become a paid caregiver. Few studies on caregiving are designed to examine how race and ethnicity, rural residence, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status affect caregivers. In a large panel of Health and Retirement Study participants, Amirkhanyan and Wolf (200) found that the adverse psychological effects of caregiving are dispersed throughout the family and not just active caregivers.
Gender differences in depression were partly explained by differences in caregiver stressors, such as the increase in care hours per week and the greater number of caregiving tasks performed by women. In short, the role of caregiver changes over time depending on changes in the care needs of older people, transitions from one care environment to another, and changes in the family, social and geographical contexts of providing care. In the NSOC, 20 percent of all caregivers and 39 percent of caregivers of older adults with high needs reported experiencing a significant level of physical difficulty. In a meta-analysis of the literature in this area, Vitaliano and his colleagues (200) found statistically significant moderate-sized differences between caregivers and controls with dementia, indicating more adverse effects among caregivers of people with dementia.
One of the most common topics in the literature on the health effects of caregivers concerns the role of pressure exerted by caregivers in predicting negative health effects (Schulz et al. Given the scope and complexity of the family caregiver role, it is essential to ensure that caregivers are well prepared. For example, more than 20 percent of caregivers say that providing care is difficult financially and physically, and 44 percent say it's emotionally difficult. Family care is more intensive, complex and long-lasting than in the past, and caregivers rarely receive adequate preparation for their role.
However, the educational needs of caregivers are not addressed in a systematic way and, at best, training for the performance of care tasks is inconsistent. This chapter examines the multiple and changing roles of family caregivers of older adults and the impact of assuming these roles on the health and well-being of caregivers. Despite many common experiences, the roles of caregivers are highly variable throughout the provision of care. However, the body of evidence on negative effects is much larger than that of positive effects, as researchers have tried to evaluate the implications of providing care for public health and to identify vulnerable and at-risk caregivers.
While a substantial proportion of the caregiver population suffers from negative psychological effects, many also consider caregiving to be rewarding. Perkins and colleagues (201) reported similar results, showing that caregivers who reported high levels of caregiving stress had a mortality risk greater than 55 percent compared to those who reported not being stressed.
