{"id":1629,"date":"2018-09-19T16:26:05","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T20:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.healthinaging.org\/blog\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2018-09-18T16:29:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T20:29:50","slug":"new-study-estimates-the-caregiving-costs-for-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthinaging.org\/blog\/new-study-estimates-the-caregiving-costs-for-families\/","title":{"rendered":"New Study Estimates the Caregiving Costs for Families"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Journal of the American Geriatrics Society<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Research Summary<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cInformal care\u201d is the term used in medicine to describe unpaid care provided by family and friends<\/a>. It\u2019s an important lifeline for millions of older adults in the U.S. who need day-to-day help with shopping, cooking, cleaning, eating, taking medicine, looking after their own daily well-being, and many other activities essential to our health and quality of life as we age.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., more than 35 million people provided informal care to someone 50-years-old and older in 2015. We usually understand the costs associated with a doctor, nurse, or other healthcare worker providing professional<\/em> care to older adults. However, we don\u2019t understand what the true costs are when older adults are cared for by family members or friends. In part, that\u2019s because most studies have focused on \u201cdirect\u201d healthcare costs (the expenses associated with professional help\/treatment). However, these studies have ignored the \u201cindirect\u201d costs associated with informal care.<\/p>\n

When the costs of informal care are accounted for, most studies usually multiply the hours of informal care by the wage that a formal home healthcare provider would earn. But this doesn\u2019t reflect the true cost of informal care. Informal caregivers often give up other activities such as leisure or employment, for example. Studies haven\u2019t examined the value of leisure time and the other important aspects of life people may give up when they care for a friend or family member.<\/p>\n

In a new study, researchers focused on one of the most common caregiving arrangements: daughters between the ages of 40 and 70 who were likely to need to provide informal care to their mothers at some point in the near future. Participants were identified using the Health and Retirement Study, a survey conducted by the University of Michigan since 1992. Findings from this new analysis were published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The researchers totaled the time the daughters spent in caregiving. They distinguished between light caregiving (providing fewer than 1,000 hours of care over a two-year period) and intensive caregiving (providing 1,000 or more hours of care). The daughters were also asked whether they worked full- or part-time outside their caregiving role.<\/p>\n

The survey also asked the daughters about their mothers\u2019 health. For example, it asked if their mothers needed help with \u201cinstrumental activities of daily living\u201d (IADLs). IADLs include activities such as taking medicine or grocery shopping. The survey also asked if their mothers needed help with more general \u201cactivities of daily living<\/a>\u201d (ADLs), such as eating, bathing, and getting around. Daughters were also asked whether their mothers could be left alone for an hour or more, and whether their mothers were ever told by a doctor that they had a memory-related disease.<\/p>\n

The researchers used these measures to define six states of health for the mothers:<\/p>\n