The Caregiver Crisis
About this Challenge:
An estimated 44 million people provide full-time or part-time care for the elderly, disabled veterans, new mothers, the injured, the sick, etc. — a problem that eventually impacts everyone in the nation.
Caregivers have few tools, few support systems and receive minimal, if any, training for these responsibilities. What innovations can we develop specifically to support the caregiver community?Meet the Challenge Team
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Dr. Peter Arno, a health economist, is the director of the doctoral program in Health Policy and Management and director of the Center for Long Term Care Research & Policy at the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College (NYMC). Before coming to NYMC, he was the director of the Division of Public Health and Policy Research in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, and has had a distinguished career in health policy and health services research. He was a Pew Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, a scholar of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and a recipient of the Investigator Award in Health Policy from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His book, Against the Odds: The Story of AIDS Drug Development, Politics & Profits (New York: HarperCollins), was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Dr. Arno’s recent work includes studies on the economics of informal caregiving and long-term care, social and geographic determinants of obesity, public health and legal implications of regulating tobacco as a drug, cost, access, quality and outcome measures related to HIV disease and substance abuse, regulation and pricing practices of the pharmaceutical industry, regional health planning and, the impact on health disparities of income support policies such as Social Security and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Dr. Arno has testified before numerous U.S. House and Senate committees on topics related to his research.
As a health economist my goal has been to portray the magnitude of the caregiving burden in the United States through economic terms to bring much needed attention to this neglected corner of our healthcare system. I have also come to appreciate the inter-connected roles of both the formal and informal sectors that provide caregiving and together form the foundation of long term care in this country. At our Center for Long Term Care Research & Policy at New York Medical College we are engaged in research, education and public policy designed to address health care disparities, health care needs and caregiving across the lifespan and to promote fair and equitable financing of long term care in the United States.
Alan Blaustein’s passion for healthcare solutions began with his thymic cancer diagnosis in 2005. Frustrated with the limited resources available to effectively navigate the healthcare system, he leaned on his longtime friend Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC's Chief Medical Editor, for support. After Alan's recovery, the friends realized there was a need for a service to help patients and caregivers make better decisions amid the healthcare system’s many complexities. In June 2012, they launched CarePlanners.
Alan has been involved with entrepreneurial ventures since the mid-1990s. As an attorney, he led the initial public offerings for more than 15 internet company clients. In addition to these roles, Alan served as President, Worldwide Corporate Development & Strategy for About.com, and served as CEO of Flexplay Technologies. Alan has also developed internet strategies for a myriad of companies, including F+W Magazine, Ford Models, and the Cancer Support Community. Most recently, he co-founded e-commerce company OpenSky in 2009.
Alan spends as much time as he can on charitable activities. He founded the annual Stinky Ball (his son's name for the thymic cancer) to benefit the Foundation for Thymic Cancer Research, raising nearly $1 million since 2006. Most importantly, he is the father of three wonderful kids for whom he wants to set a lasting example of the right way to do things.
Alan Blaustein is a semi-professional patient whose journey through the inefficiencies of the healthcare system began with his 2005 thymic cancer diagnosis. Along the way he has learned the many healthcare system challenges the hard way, namely the lack of communication and coordination that permeate the system and leave the patient feeling completely lost in the process.
To work, our system has to put the patient into the middle of his own care, rather than as an afterthought in a tangled bureaucracy. Together with his friend and business partner, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Alan has started CarePlanners to help people to make better healthcare decisions for themselves and their loved ones in the face of our complex healthcare system. It simply has to be simpler.
Suzanne Mintz is an honored social entrepreneur. In 1993 she co-founded the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) and over the years built it into the nation's premier organization in support of all family caregivers, regardless of their loved one’s age or diagnosis. Mintz is known as a forward-thinking leader who transformed the way the nation views family caregivers and family caregiving.
At a time when the focus of the caregiving community was solely on the provision of community services for the elderly, she promoted the idea that chronic illness and disability have serious consequences for caregivers and care recipients alike. In addition its impact goes beyond individual families and has become a national healthcare and social policy issue. She realized that family caregivers are part of a "silent and neglected workforce" that does not receive the recognition, training, support, assistance, or public policy attention it deserves.
Over the years she has inspired hundreds of thousands of family caregivers by sharing her own story and the lessons she has learned over the years. Both an author and speaker Mintz has empowered family caregivers to become advocates for themselves and their loved ones in order to improve their daily lives as well as their futures.
My expertise in the field of caregiving comes from both personal experience and as the co-founder and now CEO Emeritus of the National Family Caregivers Association.
Since NFCA’s founding in 1993 I have spoken with thousands of family caregivers, participated in high level policy discussions at the national level, spoken with numerous providers, health plans, and insurers all of which have deepened my understanding of the complex issues involved in resolving the Caregiving Crisis.
My 38 years of caregiving for my husband with MS provides me with a “walk in your shoes” perspective that is behind virtually all of my insights and ideas.
Barry J. Jacobs, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist, family therapist and the author of the book, The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers—Looking After Yourself and Your Family While Helping an Aging Parent (Guilford, 2006). As a clinician, he specializes in helping families cope with serious and chronic medical illnesses. As an educator, he works as the Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Springfield, PA and has had adjunct faculty positions with the Temple University School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the Institute for Clinical Psychology of Widener University. He is the national spokesperson on family caregiving for the American Heart Association and a member of the AARP Caregivers Advisory Panel. He was a member of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Caregiving that produced the Caregiver Briefcase website.
A former journalist, he writes an advice column for Take Care!, the newsletter of the National Family Caregivers Association and was the long-time editor of the In Sickness & Health column for the APA journal Families, Systems & Health. He is on the board of directors of the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association, a national organization dedicated to the integration of physical and mental healthcare, and co-edits its Growing MedFT blog. He is also an honorary board member of the Well Spouse Association.
Dr. Jacobs received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his doctorate in clinical psychology from Hahnemann/Widener Universities. He lives with his wife and two children in Swarthmore, PA. He maintains a website, www.emotionalsurvivalguide.com.
In my clinical work over the past two decades with families dealing with complex progressive illnesses, such as dementia, MS and Parkinson’s disease, and sudden medical events, such as heart attacks, traumatic brain injuries and stroke, I’ve learned that a given family’s beliefs and affective bonds determine their capacity for coping with caregiving as much or more than the severity of their loved one’s medical condition and the family’s material resources. I help family members identify and draw on their senses of cohesion and mission while helping them negotiate internal differences in perspectives and priorities.
Cheri Lattimer is the CEO and President of Consulting Management Innovators (CMI), providing outsourcing and advisory services to the care management and healthcare industries. She serves as the Executive Director for the Case Management Society of America, Executive Director for the National Transitions of Care Coalition and the Director of the Case Management Foundation. Her leadership in quality improvement, case management, care coordination and transitions of care is known on the national and international landscape.
Carol Levine directs the United Hospital Fund’s Families and Health Care Project, which focuses on developing partnerships between health care professionals and family caregivers, especially during transitions in health care settings (www.nextstepincare.org). She was editor of the Hastings Center Report and is now a Hastings Center Fellow.
In 1993 she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for her work in AIDS policy and ethics. She was named a WebMD Health Hero in 2007 and a Civic Ventures Purpose Prize Fellow in 2009.
She edited Always On Call: When Illness Turns Families into Caregivers (2nd ed., Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), and with Thomas H. Murray, co-edited The Cultures of Caregiving: Conflict and Common Ground among Families, Health Professionals and Policy Maker (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Her next book, Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Caregiving, will be published in 2013 by Vanderbilt University Press.
I was my late husband’s caregiver for 17 years after he was severely injured in an automobile accident. My experience caring for him at home, combined with my 30 years’ experience in health policy and medical ethics, are the background for my current position as director of the United Hospital Fund’s Families and Health Care Project. My focus is on helping family caregivers navigate the health care system, especially during times of transition, and helping healthcare professionals understand family caregivers’ needs for training and support.
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42 Comments
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Sieg Holle: Allow the recipients of care the true ability to make informed choices. The care paradigm is shifting with easier access to "useful" information . The Ipad has more computing power -then the billion dollar NASA computers of the time that but a man on the moon. Use the new technology and lose the excuses of high priced monopoly prone special interest care solutions. They do not work well and have a built in cancerous silo mentality that do not let innovative solutions prosper.
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Margaret Fleming: The mention of nursing staff introduces the elephant in the room: nursing home waste and corruption. One nursing home prospective buyer was using his private plane to visit available homes. States need to: Compare what they spend on medic-aid to what they spend on policing nursing homes, policing nursing home spending, training nurses and aides, and improving availability of respite care.-
Sieg Holle: Agree with the elephant in the room but follow the money In Canada we have the Ministry of Health which awards its friends the spoils of inflated health costs and chosen by government workers . A sad waste of affairs ....
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Margaret Fleming: The mention of nursing staff introduces the elephant in the room: nursing home waste and corruption. One nursing home prospective buyer was using his private plane to visit available homes. States need to: Compare what they spend on medic-aid to what they spend on policing nursing homes, policing nursing home spending, training nurses and aides, and improving availability of respite care.
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Margaret Fleming: When I once dated a realtor, his top customer for buying nursing homes had a private plane. The states that complain of medic-aid and other senior-related expense SHOULD: 1. Require nursing homes to provide a verifiable expense statement
2. Drastically increase the amount spend on examining nursing homes to see that the appropriate percentage is spent ON the patients.
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Laurie Fessenden: The caregiver often takes on the brunt of the illness process for the patient. It is amazing what these people go through in a 24 hour period. they ignore their own bodies in order to save or tend to another's. this can be detrimental to both the caregiver and the patient.
When thinking of caregivers, I tend to automaticallyt hink of the aging wife who is caring for her husband with newly diagnosed alzheimers. Knowing it is only a matter of time before he must receive more intense care, she does her best to keep her spouse of decades at home. The feeling of loyalty can be just as powerful as the feelings of resentment that build over time.
Nursing staff can also develop such feelings about patients. naturally wanting to be helpful and kind, nurses often go above and beyond what is required for the comfort of their patients. Unable to release grief, anger and resentment, nurses often either suffer from addiction problems or burn out and leave the profession.
the top 10 challenges in no apparent order contributing to the caregiver crisis goes as follows for me.
1) lack of community support: especially in a smaller town, there are few daycare programs for dementia and/ or visting nursing agencies.
2) lack of understanding by those not living with patient or directly caring for the patient. 3) caregivers do not feel they have time to attend to their own needs. 4) caregivers often suffer silent, but deadly forms of disease, often found too late for adquate treatment/management 5) lack of family education secondary to shortage of time providers are given to spend with patients and their families. 6) social stigma can often cause isolation, 7) cost of meds, care and products needed for patient care, 8) aging population caring for other ill aging, 9) fewer people entering medical field for career 10, poor nuturition secondary to low/fixed income often stressed by medical care costs and transportation.
Thank you for allwoing me to give my 2 cents. -
Angil Tarach-Ritchey: I have been in geriatric care and advocacy for over 30 years and nothing has changed in all those years. There was a shortage of caregivers then and there is a shortage now. There will always be a shortage unless we create a better aging future. I invite you to read Behind the Old Face: Aging in America and the Coming Elder Boom to find a model of senior living and care that will not only solve the majority of this problem, but will also reduce healthcare costs, allow seniors to age at home where they prefer, and will be available to all seniors, regardless of income. http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Old-Face-America-Coming/dp/1937504336
Or see a free 22 page preview in this mini-media ebook http://www.dreamsculpt.com/behindtheoldface/
This book has been endorsed by Ken Dychtwald Ph.D., highly respected aging authority, author and founder Age Wave, as well as 2 nursing organizations, NurseTogether and NurseTalk.
We must stop talking and start acting to reduce the impending Elder Boom crisis. We are too fragmented in our attempts to improve the system. If we combine the education, experience, talents and resources we all have we could solve these problems. We can't expect the government to care for us any longer.
A semi-private nursing home bed in the US currently averages $85,000.00 a year. In 20 years, that same bed will be over $210,000.00 a year. Who is prepared for that? It's not just a caregiver shortage, it's an entire system that needs to be changed. I invite you to read my latest blog post titled Old Age: A quiet, often tragic world (2). You will be very surprised by what you read.
http://www.behindtheoldface.com/?p=208
Lets work together to create a better aging future for us all. It's closer than you think.-
Robert Albert: So, I just ordered the book... I hope it's a great read. As a student in the Aging Services program at UMBC, I'm pretty discriminating when it comes to giving up my time for reading. Thanks for the chance to explore your writing(s).
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Debra Duffy: I live in a community on the boundary of The Navajo Nation, interspersed with the Ute, Apache and other Native American tribes. I work at a 250 bed visionary hospital.
By that I mean the community saw its place in the lives of its community, formed a Community Hospital Board in the late 1800's, and has grown, providing services based on the needs of our community.
The Board is comprised of persons from all walks of life within our community, not medical staff, only.
Now, this is quite similar to TedMed, isn't it? For without community input, how could we hope to change, or modify practices, to work successfully for everyone? How could we address challenges, tweaking them, ultimately to reach our goal?
To provide optimum services that care for our community.
I have interpreted what each of you have shared as stumbling blocks, or barriers to caring for an aging population.
I see the erosion of family in the Tribal Nations, now running head-to-head with its' counter citizens beyond the Indian nations' boundaries. The reality being the roadblocks mentioned you've shared: distance, single parent homes, women in the work-force, exhaustion, and yes, financial burdens. In this area, more-so that other places, alcohol has ripped the souls from the very heart of Tribal Nations.
Physicians don't ask patients about their living conditions and nurses are required to ask two questions. Are you in fear of anyone in your household and has anyone in your home harmed you?
Unless a medical professional sees marks, broken bones, or realizes frequent trips to the ER, flags aren't waved in front of us to seek additional assistance for the person in front of us. We recognize the battered, eventually. We call the Social Workers to help those in need.
For those patients beyond the scope of what our hospital can provide, we send to a larger community...to physicians and hospitals equipped with specialists and equipment we do not have, yet. Big word. Yet.
We do have one of the top five neurosurgeons in the country at our hospital. We do have state-of-the-art cardiac facilities and a group of Cardiologists committed to the community to provide exceptional cardiac care. I was a Traveling Nurse, worked in numerous hospitals, and not one of the hospitals where I worked has met the standards of cardiac care unit in our hospital. Five years ago, all cardiac patients had to flown to Albuquerque.
It was the hospital's Board, citizens from our community, who found a way to care for its own community. Believe me, it wasn't by dangling money before anyone. We aren't a community with financial resources. By the same token, this community didn't use money, exhaustion, situations, to reach their goal. To provide optimum care of the community.
Now, this community has a hospital that will one day provide more and more specialized services.
I, personally, have seen the gravity of dementia in the aging population across our country. I have spoken to my insurer about long-term care insurance, and realized just how debilitating the cost for insurance is on my own family. I am a single parent who wonders how in the world my immature seventeen year-old could care for me should I succumb to dementia. He can't. He has a girlfriend and homework.
I would like to suggest that instead of roadblocks, we use a community to come together, to discover a way to support this specific dementia demographic.
Use a community as your building block that stimulates us to be aware and ask or neighbor, or any stranger we meet, that doesn't look quite right, something simple like, "May I help you ....carry in those groceries, or mow that lawn for you, or go to the store for you?"
For, although those of of in the medical, insurance or similar fields are aware of the decline of the aging population and dementia, the first thing we need to do is make everyone aware how important their role is in helping and obtains assistance for someone.
Somehow, our community has done this. I know there are more things we would love to provide. Perhaps TedMed would like to see more.
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TEDMED Moderator: Including family caregivers in hospital discharge planning and better educating caregivers about their charges' health conditions could significantly improve outcomes for those cared for. That is one conclusion suggested by a new study issued today by The National Center on Caregiving at Family Caregiver Alliance. The study is titled "Family Caregiving and Transitional Care: A Critical Review." -- posted 12/20/12
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Carol Levine: Interesting comments. Thank you Christine. It is important to recognize how attitudes and policies have changed but it is also important to recognize the limits of historical comparisons. Caregiving in the 17th century was worlds away from caregiving today -- or even 50 years ago. Communities put old and sick people without property in poorhouses. Medicine was primitive. What communities (and families) could do was limited. Government has not really taken on day-to-day caregiving responsiblities, except through Medicaid, which pays for nursing homes and some home-based services for low-income people. Medicare pays for medical care, not caregiving as families experience it. There is indeed an important role for communities and government to support caregiving but it is still primarily a family responsiblity. We need specific policies that support family caregivers and community resources.
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Carol Voss: WI's community-based LTC programs allow for family caregivers (providing care to eligible family members) to be paid hourly for their work. This offers some financial assistance especially for those that cannot work other jobs due to caregiving responsibilities. Their work then is valued as much as any non-family caregiver who would otherwise be required to provide care to their loved ones. Perhaps other states could learn and model from WI? This has been a longstanding and effective program for years. Personal care and supportive home care for length of a lifespan will become increasingly necessary because of the aging of the population, improved technology to sustain life and the desire for people to live in less costly, non institutional settings with, we'd argue much more personal choice and dignity for independent living.
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What are the top 10 contributing factors for the Great Challenge, "The Caregiver Crisis"?Discussion Policy
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- The TEDMED Community is offered as a free public service to promote discussion on the future of Health and Medicine.
- Any “Submission” made is of the opinion of the community member who posted it and does not, in any way, reflect the views or opinion of TEDMED.
- In making a Submission, you agree that you will not violate any trademark or copyright laws. You agree and acknowledge that TEDMED does not represent any rights to the Submissions.
- As a member of the TEDMED community, we encourage you to share your knowledge, information and opinion. In making a Submission, you agree that such submission is made in a professional manner with the purpose of furthering or expanding discussion on TEDMED.com.
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8 Comments
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Margaret Fleming: The mention of nursing staff introduces the elephant in the room: nursing home waste and corruption. One nursing home prospective buyer was using his private plane to visit available homes. States need to: Compare what they spend on medic-aid to what they spend on policing nursing homes, policing nursing home spending, training nurses and aides, and improving availability of respite care.
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Sieg Holle: Agree with the elephant in the room but follow the money In Canada we have the Ministry of Health which awards its friends the spoils of inflated health costs and chosen by government workers . A sad waste of affairs ....
-
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Margaret Fleming: The mention of nursing staff introduces the elephant in the room: nursing home waste and corruption. One nursing home prospective buyer was using his private plane to visit available homes. States need to: Compare what they spend on medic-aid to what they spend on policing nursing homes, policing nursing home spending, training nurses and aides, and improving availability of respite care.
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Laurie Fessenden: The caregiver often takes on the brunt of the illness process for the patient. It is amazing what these people go through in a 24 hour period. they ignore their own bodies in order to save or tend to another's. this can be detrimental to both the caregiver and the patient.
When thinking of caregivers, I tend to automaticallyt hink of the aging wife who is caring for her husband with newly diagnosed alzheimers. Knowing it is only a matter of time before he must receive more intense care, she does her best to keep her spouse of decades at home. The feeling of loyalty can be just as powerful as the feelings of resentment that build over time.
Nursing staff can also develop such feelings about patients. naturally wanting to be helpful and kind, nurses often go above and beyond what is required for the comfort of their patients. Unable to release grief, anger and resentment, nurses often either suffer from addiction problems or burn out and leave the profession.
the top 10 challenges in no apparent order contributing to the caregiver crisis goes as follows for me.
1) lack of community support: especially in a smaller town, there are few daycare programs for dementia and/ or visting nursing agencies.
2) lack of understanding by those not living with patient or directly caring for the patient. 3) caregivers do not feel they have time to attend to their own needs. 4) caregivers often suffer silent, but deadly forms of disease, often found too late for adquate treatment/management 5) lack of family education secondary to shortage of time providers are given to spend with patients and their families. 6) social stigma can often cause isolation, 7) cost of meds, care and products needed for patient care, 8) aging population caring for other ill aging, 9) fewer people entering medical field for career 10, poor nuturition secondary to low/fixed income often stressed by medical care costs and transportation.
Thank you for allwoing me to give my 2 cents. -
Angil Tarach-Ritchey: I have been in geriatric care and advocacy for over 30 years and nothing has changed in all those years. There was a shortage of caregivers then and there is a shortage now. There will always be a shortage unless we create a better aging future. I invite you to read Behind the Old Face: Aging in America and the Coming Elder Boom to find a model of senior living and care that will not only solve the majority of this problem, but will also reduce healthcare costs, allow seniors to age at home where they prefer, and will be available to all seniors, regardless of income. http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Old-Face-America-Coming/dp/1937504336
Or see a free 22 page preview in this mini-media ebook http://www.dreamsculpt.com/behindtheoldface/
This book has been endorsed by Ken Dychtwald Ph.D., highly respected aging authority, author and founder Age Wave, as well as 2 nursing organizations, NurseTogether and NurseTalk.
We must stop talking and start acting to reduce the impending Elder Boom crisis. We are too fragmented in our attempts to improve the system. If we combine the education, experience, talents and resources we all have we could solve these problems. We can't expect the government to care for us any longer.
A semi-private nursing home bed in the US currently averages $85,000.00 a year. In 20 years, that same bed will be over $210,000.00 a year. Who is prepared for that? It's not just a caregiver shortage, it's an entire system that needs to be changed. I invite you to read my latest blog post titled Old Age: A quiet, often tragic world (2). You will be very surprised by what you read.
http://www.behindtheoldface.com/?p=208
Lets work together to create a better aging future for us all. It's closer than you think.-
Robert Albert: So, I just ordered the book... I hope it's a great read. As a student in the Aging Services program at UMBC, I'm pretty discriminating when it comes to giving up my time for reading. Thanks for the chance to explore your writing(s).
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Christine Damon: I agree with the factors you've listed, however, I think that we also need to consider changing national attitudes toward caregiving. During the 17th century, a strong sense of community responsibility reinforced the notion of caregiving as a duty, and the elderly were supported in their homes by family and community members. For families with property, the probability of receiving that care was heightened through a formal exchange provided through a will: property in support for care. As life expectancy, industrialization, and the numbers of older adults increased at the beginning of the nineteenth century, care shifted from the home to institutions to make more young laborers available to work; aging came to be viewed as a disease and older adults as useless. With the enactment of the Medicare, Medicaid, and the Older Americans Act in 1965, the willingness of government to take on caregiving responsibilities peaked. That crest was short-lived, however, as the burgeoning cost of care led to cost containment seven years later. In the late twentieth century, responsibility for eldercare returned to communities and families. The provision of government-provided home and community-based services, however, has not kept pace with this trend, and increasing numbers of informal caregivers fill the service gap without much in the way of education and/or support. (References available upon request.)
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Barry Jacobs: Your historical perspective is very interesting. One could extrapolate that there is a connection between the fact that our economy doesn't need younger workers to the same degree and the return to the community of care for our elders. But in order to make such work palatable to younger people, it has to be valued with money and prestige. (I think Sweden has taken steps along these lines.) To make this happen, in part, government has to better enable family members to take on these roles with remuneration and greater support.
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Jan Rabinowitz: I have just joined in this group. I am on the Board of the Well Spouse Association. Barry Jacobs, Carol Levine, and I think Suzanne Mintz have spoken at our conferences. As a spousal caregiver, I am concerned about work/health/health insurance issues associated with younger caregivers. To that end, I am interested in conducting research on spousal caregivers under age 65. Can anyone suggest partners for such research?
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Suzanne Geffen Mintz: The societal changes that have brought about the caregiver crisis have been in formation for a long time. I didn't notice any media attention to this issue until reporters started getting up into their forties. At first there was a trickle and then the floodgates opened. Now caregiving is a regular topic in the press and certainly on the web . The societal factors as I see them are:
The increase in life expectancy which has come about due to better nutrition and the development of life-saving medications and other medical advances
Delayed parenting, women waiting untiil their mid to late 30s and even 40s before starting a family thus creating the sandwich generation of caregivers
More women in the workforce - emplyers have learned first with the need for child care that some of their employees need accomodations so they could meet their obligations at home and at work.
Dispersal of families across the country - traditionally families lived close by each other and there were always lots of siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins around. Now we are spread out across the country, not cuddled in smaller communities. The natural support systems that families traditionally provided each other doesn't exist the way it did in the past.
These societal changes are at the core of the crisis and they are our current reality. change. What we need to do is find the right mechanisms for dealing with their consequences.
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Barry Jacobs: Suzanne, I like your list of societal changes. I just read (somewhere) that the geographic dispersal of Americans actually reached a peak over a decade ago and has declined in recent years, perhaps in response to the economic downturn. (All those twenty-somethings living in their parents basements may be throwing off the statistics.) This is going to sound contradictory but another societal trend that may come into play is that more Americans are living alone--and therefore without the in-home supports provided by a spouse or close family member.
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Responses By Team Member:
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Lisa Fields: Terry Gross with NPR gave us a wonderful interview with our guest Carol Levine |
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Cynthia Nelson: Massachusetts Adult Family Care Program |
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TEDMED Moderator: Part of TEDMED's storytelling series on the Great Challenges, this is about a 17-year-old caregiver who has helped three generations of his family. |
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TEDMED Moderator: TEDMED 2011 speaker Elissa Epel, a stress researcher, talks about the stress of caregiving and offers solutions. |
Live Event
Members of the Great Challenge Team, The Caregiver Crisis gathered on Google + Hangout to discuss the topic in a virtual roundtable event. Watch their discussion and add your perspective by commenting below.
Participants:
Peter Arno Ph.D, Alan Blaustein, Suzanne Geffen Mintz, Barry Jacobs, Psy.D, Cheri Lattimer, RN, BSN, Carol Levine
Meet the Team