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Welcome to the Family Caregiver Magazine website. Family Caregiver Magazine provides families and caregivers with helpful information in relation to current family and caregiver resources for health and senior services. Through this website and publication you will gain additional insight of the new roll you have taken on. Visit each page of this site;www.Familycaregiver.org and let us know what you think THE FAMILY CAREGIVER Caring for a loved one that may have a debilitating health condition may forever change the lives of families and caregivers. While helping a friend or relative can be positive in many ways, the effects on caregivers often caregiving can be devastating: work life changes, financial pressures, legal quandaries, health problems, emotional turmoil and depression. Informal caregiver and family caregiver are terms that refer to unpaid individuals such as family members, friends and neighbors who provide care. These individuals can be primary or secondary caregivers, full time or part time, and can live with the person being cared for or live separately. (Formal caregivers are care providers associated with a service system or hired independent providers.) The informal caregiver also known as the family caregiver. In California this person provides most of the long-term care for a loved one. Care can range from handling a loved one’s transportation, finances and medications to managing feeding tubes, injections, physical therapy and personal hygiene. In fact, according to a recent estimate, California caregivers annually provide unpaid care services with a market value equal to $45 billion (AARP Public Policy Institute, 2007). A few California statistics:
1.8 million households are caring for someone aged 50 or older, i.e., 16% of California’s 11,502,870 households (Scharlach, et al., 2003). 4 million family members are caring for someone over the age of 18 (AARP Public Policy Institute, 2007). 60% of California caregivers are married 51 years is the average age of California caregivers. (Scharlach,et al., 2003) 77% are women, of whom 37% are daughters; 25% are wives of the person needing care.
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