Caregiving takes many forms. Many of us help older, sick, or disabled family members and friends every day. We know we are helping, but we don’t think of ourselves as caregivers. We are glad to do this and feel rewarded by it, but if the demands are heavy, over time we can also become exhausted and stressed. We think we should be able to handle caregiving roles on top of busy work and family schedules and begin to feel guilty and depressed as our stamina wanes.

Who Are Caregivers? The short answer is most of us, at some point in our lives. Caregivers are daughters, wives, husbands, sons, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, partners and friends. While some people receive care from paid caregivers, most rely on unpaid assistance from families, friends and neighbors.

Caregivers manage a wide range of responsibilities. In your family, for example, are you the person who buys groceries, cooks, cleans house or does laundry for someone who needs special help doing these things, helps a family member get dressed, take a shower and take medicine, transfers someone in and out of bed, helps with physical therapy, injections, feeding tubes or other medical procedures, makes medical appointments and drives to the doctor and drugstore, talks with the doctors, care managers and others to understand what needs to be done, spends time at work handling a crisis or making plans to help a family member who is sick, is the designated “on-call” family member for problems.  Quite a list!

Here is a profile of caregivers:

• Sixty percent of caregivers are women; 40% are men.
• Most caregivers are married or living with a partner.
• The majority of caregivers are middle-aged (35-64 years old).
• Most caregivers are employed, working full or part-time.
• Ethnic minority caregivers provide more care than their white counter-parts.
• Nearly 1 in 5 provide more than 40 hours of care per week. 
• Most caregivers live near the people they care for. Eighty-three percent care for relatives, 24% live with the care recipient, 61% live up to one hour away, and 15% live a one or more hour drive away.

Source: Family Caregiver Alliance

https://www.caregiver.org/resource/caregiving/