Due to the importance of this subject in our Sun City community, I have decided to add Part 6: Where to search for physical and emotional help. Part 6 will be seen in the August 9 edition.
As a family caregiver watching a loved one in constant pain and distress, debilitating physical and emotional stress occurs. Whether the cared-for person is a spouse, parent, or a child of the caregiver, it is an overwhelming burden assumed by the person giving the care. The caregiver’s multitude of daily patient tasks generally includes providing transportation, administering medicine, aiding toilet use and bathing, dressing and feeding their patient relative, not to speak of the myriad household duties and family responsibilities to be performed.
Most of us will be unpaid caregivers at some point during our lives. In fact, during any given year, there are 20 million households, or more than 44 million Americans (21 percent of the U.S. adult population), who provide and donate an estimated $250 billion a year in free care or 80 percent of the long-term care in our country. Most unpaid caregivers are middle-aged, with 13 percent aged 65 and older. Sixty-one percent are women.
While personal caregiving can give a senior a feeling of self-worth through unselfishly giving back to a loved one, feelings of frustration, helplessness, desperation, anger, guilt, loneliness, and exhaustion are often felt.
Although most caregivers are in good health, it is not uncommon for senior caregivers under this kind of stress to suffer serious health problems, as discussed in Part 3 of this series on stress. Research shows that senior caregivers are even more vulnerable to:
1. A higher risk of mental decline, including attention deficit disorder and memory loss problems, which exasperate dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Severe anxiety and depression, in some cases, leading to suicide. The University of South Florida found that half of the 176 homicide-suicides committed by older people over a six-year period in Florida involved caregivers who were not treated for their depression.
3. Higher levels of stress hormones compromising the immune system leading to more infectious diseases for the caregiver and slower wound healing. Over another six-year time frame, researchers at Ohio State University isolated the stress hormone Interleukin-6 linked to heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. They found that it was four times higher in caregivers.
4. One research study found that elderly people who felt stressed while taking care of their disabled spouse were 60 percent more likely to die within four years than caregivers not feeling stressed. Hilda Schmidt, a Sun City resident who lost her husband, Don, this past April after taking care of him for two years, tells us, “Don was always easy to handle and to care for – he was always very cooperative. We worked and prayed and cried together.” Thus, Hilda prevented heavy stress from entering into her caregiving services.
Female caregivers have less likely been found to be pro-active in caring for their own health and in eating, exercising, and sleeping properly. Symptoms of excessive caregiving stress can be feeling overwhelmed, sleeping too little or too much, gaining or losing a lot of weight, feeling worried and tired much of the time, becoming easily irritated and angered, often feeling sad, reporting lots of body aches, and abusing alcohol or drugs, including prescription drugs. If a caregiver finds stress leading them to physically or emotionally harm the person they are caring for, they should immediately seek professional counseling.
Next Week: Part 6: Where to search for physical and emotional help
