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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Caregivers of frail elders
— updating a national profile | | Author(s) | Jennifer L Wolff, Judith D Kasper |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 46, no 3, June 2006 |
| Pages | pp 344-356 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Informal care ; Family care ; Physical disabilities ; Long term ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Family caregivers are the backbone of long-term care provision in the US. Data from the 1989 and 1999 National Long-Term Care Survey (NLTCS) and Informal Care Survey were used to develop nationally representative profiles of disabled older people and their primary informal caregivers at two points in time. The proportion of chronically disabled community-dwelling older people who were receiving informal assistance from family or friends declined over the period, whereas the proportion receiving no help increased. On average, recipients of informal care were older and more disabled in 1999 than in 1989. Primary caregivers were children (41.3%), spouses (38.4%) and other family or friend (20.4%); children were more likely and others less likely to serve as primary caregivers in 1999 relative to 1989. Primary caregivers provided frequent and high levels of help at both points in time. A striking increase was found (from 34.9% to 52.8%) in the proportion of primary caregivers working alone, without secondary caregiver involvement. In the context of projected demographic trends and budgetary constraints to public health insurance programmes, these data underscore the importance of identifying viable strategies to monitor and support family caregivers in the coming years. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070926206 A |
| Classmark | P6: P6:SJ: BN: 4Q: 3J: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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