According to an AARP Public Policy Institute study, 40
million non-professional caregivers, usually family or friends, provide up to
37 billion hours of assistance to care receivers. This breaks down to those 40 million
people providing an average of 18 hours a week helping friends and loved ones
with health care needs. Perhaps most amazingly, according to that same study
this accounts for over a whopping $470 BILLION in savings to family, the health
care industry, and federal and state agencies.
This type of caregiving can come in many forms: getting
groceries for a relative—helping someone with a walker into or out of a
car—shoveling snow from a neighbor’s driveway—taking a loved one to a medical
appointment—or even simply calling your grandfather to remind him to take his
pills—these are all caregiving situations that may seem small, but are in all
actuality great benefits to people’s lives.
Given the above statistics from AARP’s study on caregiving
and the United States’ increasingly older population, the role of
non-professional caregivers is only going to become more important. Thus, there
will likely also be an increase in the potential stress and strain on
caregivers in the coming years.
As the Minnesota Board on Aging comments in their Caregiver
Resource Guide, “each caregiving experience is unique. You will have
changing needs, feelings, trials and rewards. Your experience will change over
time. Yet, one thing is for sure. All caregivers need to find balance.” Finding
balance, and reducing caregiver “burnout,” is an essential component in
maintaining and increasing the important role of caregivers in helping to
improve the quality of life for America’s aging population.
