Caregivers Series Part 1: Where Are Caregivers of Adults Spending Their Time?

Caregivers of adults spend on average 24.4 hours a week providing care. 23% of caregivers provide more than 40 hours of care each week. That’s a full time job! So where is that time spent? Of the personal daily activities, most caregivers indicated activities such as getting in/out of beds/chairs, getting dressed, toilet assistance, bathing, feeding, and dealing with incontinence or diapers. While the caregiver providing <20 hours per week deals with only a couple of these activities, many of the caregivers providing >20 hours per week must perform all of these activities. Nearly a quarter of the caregivers are finding difficulty with performing these caregiving tasks.

Even a greater percentage of caregivers are providing instrument activities such as providing transportation, shopping, cleaning, cooking, financial management, medications, and arranging outside services. Again almost all of the >20 hours caregivers are providing all of these services. In addition, the majority of caregivers also monitor the recipient’s health, communicate with healthcare professionals, and advocate with providers, services, and agencies.

There is burden on the caregiver to provide this level of assistance. 58% of caregivers report a moderate to high level of burden in providing this care.

On average, 57% of caregivers are providing medical/nursing tasks. For the >20 hour a week caregiver it is 83%.

As you see, providing care to a loved one can be a full-time job. In this series we will look at the impact this has on the caregiver and provide you with nursing home alternatives that will allow your loved one to remain at home.

Next in the series:  The Emotional & Physical Stress of Caregiving

Source:  Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 – Executive Summary