Caregiving
Caregiving is assisting with basic daily activities such as dressing, eating, shopping, physical hygiene, money management, and preparing meals. Caregivers include friends and family members who voluntarily helps the elderly out of love ( The Caregiver Resource Center, 2017) . Caregiving supports an individual's psychological, physical, and developmental needs.
The caregiving costs to caregivers can be ascribed in a wide range of ways. For instance, caregivers lose wages because they have to leave their jobs. Caregiving decreases employability rates because giving care for years or months often challenges return to the workforce. On average, caregivers who are employed lose around $659,000 over their lifespan because of providing care, especially as a result of unpaid work assisting the elderly. Caregivers suffer from increased healthcare costs because of their own emotional and physical health decline. Caregiving burden is a gender issue with females being heavily burdened than males. Males and females live in separate structural contexts with a disproportionate distribution of opportunities, privileges, rewards, and responsibilities, increasing the intensities and types of stressors to which individuals are exposed ( Swinkels, Tilburg, Verbakel & Broese, 2017). Some of the ways to relieve caregiver burden are to seek professional assistance on time and share responsibilities with other family members. The burden can also be eliminated by exploring for ways to feel empowered and embracing the caregiving focus on things that can be controlled, and celebrate victories.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Long-term Care Continuum
Long-term care continuum focuses on serving the growing frail population in a less institutional and less expensive setting. The factors that determine the most appropriate type of care needed by an individual include long-term disabilities or loss of function. System factors such as population characteristics and public policies also determine the type of care. The immediate predictors of service utilization are need-based factors such and serious health conditions and problems.
Grief and Bereavement
Grief is the normal reaction to the loss of a loved one, a relationship, opportunity, physical ability, or future dreams and hopes. Bereavement, on the other hand, is the state of having suffered the loss of a loved one. Older people might experience grief differently from younger people. The elderly might suffer from persistent complex bereavement disorder ( Brodbeck, Berger & Znoj, 2017) . In addition to coping with the loss of a loved one, the elderly probably experience a wide range of losses associated with changes in lifestyle, identity, energy, independence, and relationships.
References
Brodbeck, J., Berger, T., & Znoj, H. (2017). An internet-based self-help intervention for older adults after marital bereavement, separation or divorce: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials , 18 (1), doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1759-5
Swinkels, J., Tilburg, T. V., Verbakel, E., & Broese van Groenou, M. (2017). Explaining the gender gap in the caregiving burden of partner caregivers. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B , 74 (2), 309-317.
The Caregiver Resource Center. (2017, October 31). The caregiver. Retrieved from http://www.caregiverresourcecenter.com/the_caregiver.htm
