A recent report conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the AARP provides a comprehensive portrait of family caregivers today in the United States.
What is amazing is the number of people who act as unpaid caregivers. In the past 12 months, an estimated 65.7 million people in the U.S. have served as unpaid family caregivers to an adult or a child. The Caregiving in the U.S. 2009 report is packed with research. Here are a few of the findings:
* Eighty-six percent of caregivers provide provide care for a relative, 36% care for a parent and 14% care for their own child.
* The main reasons people need care are old age (12%), Alzheimer’s disease (10%), mental/emotional illness (7%), cancer (7%), heart disease (5%) and stroke (5%).
* On average, caregivers spend 20.4 hours per week providing care.
* 90% of caregivers say their recipient takes prescription medications.
* 68% of caregivers for an adult receive help from one other unpaid caregiver.
New technologies such as RememberItNow! offer great promise for facilitating some of the responsibilities that caregivers’ shoulder and more generally to improve the care for their recipients. Nearly half of caregivers say they are already using some type of technology to provide care. An electronic organizer/calendar is the most frequently used technology. Here’s a breakdown:
Tags: caregiving, research
