“It is a difficult tightrope to walk for those who need to provide long-term care assistance," said Donna Wagner, senior Vice president, NCOA.” Individuals are finding it tough to meet their professional obligations, attend to their personal needs and provide long-term care assistance to loved ones. They must continually make hard choices."
The impact, however, has a greater affect on women than men. Overall, women in the survey were more likely to have provided hands-on long-term care than men (58 percent of women, 48 percent of men) and were more likely to report hardships resulting from the caregiving. Almost half of the female caregivers, 48 percent, reported a "significant impact" on their work, compared to 32 percent of male caregivers.
Both men and women said providing care affected their family lives, but more women cited this effect, 73 percent compared to 60 percent. And more than twice as many women than men said providing long-term care assistance had a significant impact on their own health, 40 percent compared to 18 percent.
Women were also more likely to worry about long-term care than men but said they have done less planning for it. Fifty-six percent of female respondents described long-term care as a "very big problem" compared to 42 percent of male respondents.
In 1995, Business Week began conducting an annual survey of caregiving demands in the workplace and how employers are responding to these growing pressures. BW found that while more respondents cited caregiving stress each year, relatively few companies were interested in helping much.
Commenting on the results of their 1997 survey, BW wrote, “Hundreds of (surveys) arrived--letters from across the nation reflecting on the difficult intersection of jobs and personal lives. As a rule, they weren't pretty. Many Americans, caught between the crush of demanding employers and the intensity of their dual-income, sandwich-generation families, feel abused and angry. They view corporate ''family-friendly'' efforts as either empty nods to political correctness or just shrewd public relations. Wrote one: ''What a joke!''
BW received an astonishing 12,000 employee responses from 55 companies, from their second Survey of Work and Family Strategies in Corporate America. On one level, the results were encouraging. At companies such as MBNA Corp. and First Tennessee Bank, which ranked highest overall, family-friendliness is ingrained in both culture and business strategy. At Barnett Banks, Motorola, and Sequent Computer Systems, among others, workers testified to the success of strategies designed to ease work-family tensions.
“Beyond the top tier, however, the mood darkened. Many employees said work had a negative impact on their home lives. Importantly, the discontented weren't just working mothers. Childless couples and single people were just as dissatisfied. Men expressed greater frustration than women with work-family balance. Unhappiest of all were employees responsible at home for elder care, a long-ignored group almost as numerous as women with kids.”
Many caregivers report family conflict and the loss of friends and activities as a result of caregiving. The emotional and physical strains of caregiving often lead to deterioration in the caregiver's own health. Although caregivers report physical, financial, and family strains associated with caregiving, the most negative consequences of caregiving on caregivers seem to be the emotional strain of caregiver burdens.
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Practical Steps for Employers To Address The Coming Labor Shortage: What Employers Can Do
Eldercare is now recognized by a growing number of employers. Support for employees who have caregiving responsibilities can take a variety of forms:
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Employers can offer "cafeteria style" employee benefits, which allow employees to select supplemental dependent care coverage to reimburse costs for in-home care or adult day care. Benefits also should cover therapeutic counseling for the employee to help cope with the stresses of caregiving.
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Human Resource or employee assistance program staff can provide information on local I&R services or resource centers.
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Larger businesses can organize in-house caregiver support groups or coordinate with local community groups or hospitals so that employees can attend an outside support group.
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One of the most critical benefits for an employee with caregiving responsibilities is time. Flexible work hours, family illness days, and leave time are key. Data from the Bureau of National Affairs (1993) found that flexible scheduling improved job performance, decreased lateness and employee turnover, and increased job satisfaction.
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Companies with 50 or more employees must comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a seriously ill parent, spouse or child, while protecting job security. Smaller firms can use the FMLA guidelines to provide support for individual employees.
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Other ideas include holding a company "caregiver fair" or a series of lunchtime seminars on issues such as hiring a home care attendant, or coping skills for caregivers. Employers can establish a telephone hot line, or publish a list of key contacts in their employee newsletter.
RESOURCES
Elder Life Planning for Organizations – http://www.elderlifeplanning.com/
Nationwide elder care consultants who custom design affordable elder care and working caregiver programs for corporations and membership associations.
Contact: Linda Rose O’Connor - lindaroseo@elderlifeplanning.com
Informed Eldercare Decisions, Inc., 450 Washington Street-Suite 108, Dedham, MA 02026 1-800-375-0595
Family Caregiver Alliance
690 Market Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 434-3388
(800) 445-8106 (in CA)
Family Caregiver Alliance supports and assist caregivers of brain-impaired adults through education, research, services and advocacy.
FCA's information Clearinghouse covers current medical, social, public policy and caregiving issues related to brain impairments.![]() Information on a broad range of subjects is available through FCA Fact Sheets and other publications or at our website, www.caregiver.org
Eldercare Locator
To find local Area Agencies on Aging throughout the U.S., as well as state Long-Term Care Ombudsman offices for nursing homes, call:
(800) 677-1116
www.aoa.gov
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys
1604 Country Club Road
Tucson, AZ 85716
(602) 881-4005
www.naela.org
United Seniors Health Cooperative
Information on long-term care insurance
1331 H St., NW, Suite 513
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 393-6222
Assisted Living Facilities Association of America
9401 Lee Highway, Suite 402
Fairfax, VA
(703) 691-8100
National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers
1604 No. Country Club Road
Tucson, AZ 85716
(602) 881-8008
www.caremanager.org
Washington Business Group on Health
777 North Capitol St., NE, Suite 800
Washington DC 20002
(202) 408-9320
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People with cardiovascular disease have an elevated risk of developing dementia
PITTSBURGH, May 9 – People with cardiovascular disease have an elevated risk of developing dementia, including both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, according to a study being presented May 9 at the annual meeting of the American Geriatric Society in Washington, D.C.
The study, by Anne B. Newman, M.D., M.P.D., a geriatrician at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology, investigated the associations between the risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia in people with a history of clinical cardiovascular disease (heart attack, angina or peripheral vascular disease) or markers for cardiovascular disease (including ECG abnormalities, left ventricular hypertrophy, carotid artery thickness or carotid stenosis).
“We found that those with cardiovascular disease had an increased risk of dementia of about 30 percent, only partially explained by stroke,” Dr. Newman said. “Although the relative risk was moderate, the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease coupled with the high risk of dementia in older adults would suggest that prevention of cardiovascular disease might be the most effective preventive measure we have for the prevention of dementia.”
The study is part of the Cardiovascular Health Study, which included 5,201 people aged 65 and older in 1989/90 and an additional 687 African-Americans enrolled in 1992/93 from four U.S. communities. Ten annual clinical exams took place from study entry until 1999. These exams included cognitive testing and other physical, psychosocial and laboratory measures. Of that group, 3,602 participants who had undergone an MRI in 1992/93 were selected for further cognitive assessment, which was concluded in 1999.
The study found that of the 3,602 participants in the Cognition Study Group, 480 had some type of dementia. Of these, 330 had Alzheimer’s disease (69 percent), 52 had vascular dementia (11 percent), 76 had mixed vascular and Alzheimer’s disease (16 percent) and six had Parkinson’s disease (1 percent). Vascular dementia is the result of insufficient blood flow to the brain.
“The risk of dementia was highest in those participants with peripheral arterial disease,” Dr. Newman reported. “The risk of Alzheimer’s disease was also higher in those with cardiovascular disease, though this was partly explained by other dementia risk factors.”
The study is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health -
HL 85079 – 86 and R01-AG-15928. |
