Page 14 - Delaware Medical Journal - September/October 2018
P. 14
Informal Care:
Louis E, Bartoshesky, MD, MPH; Barry
J. Jacobs, Psy.D.; Patt Ellen Panzer, MD, AGrowingPublicHealthIssue MPH,FAAFP;JohnGoodill,MD
The 78-year-old man was adamant that he didn’t need any assistance. “Why do you keep giving me brochures for support groups?” Mr. Dixon asked his wife’s family physician. “I’m needs help.” But the concerned physician could see that Mr. Dixon appeared worn out from devotedly tending to his spouse. She wondered how she could convince him that accepting help for himself would ultimately help his wife.
In primary care and specialty care
Mr. Dixons, commonly known as family caregivers, who are providing care to loved ones with medical conditions.
Their growing presence is evidence
that the population of older persons in
the U.S. continues to increase. Many “Baby Boomers” are now in their 70s.
In Delaware, there were 211,000 persons who were 60 or older in 2015, including about 38,000 older than 80.1 Older persons suffer higher rates of chronic, debilitating for which they need care. That creates the need for more professional services but also greater family member involvement in what has been called “informal care.”
“Unpaid care provided to older and dependent persons by a person with whom they have a social relationship, such
as spouse, parent, child, other relative, 2 Other provided without cost to sick, disabled, or elderly in a non-professional capacity”),3 but all include the important features: unpaid, old, or dependent.
The economic value of informal care to
our health system and society as a whole
relationships cannot be counted like hired workers and costs of care are not recorded directly. But it has been estimated that about $375 billion worth of care was supplied by U.S. family caregivers in 2015.4,5 Even if this the numbers would still be impressive.
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Del Med J | September/October 2018 | Vol. 90 | No. 7
