Long Distance Family Elder Care Burdens Workers Professor David J. Demko, PhD AgeVenture News Service 08-01-04 Society relies heavily on America's families to carry the burden of elder care. Historically, families are estimated to provide 80 percent of the nation's elder care. As studies further indicate, family caregivers provide this role at great financial, emotional, and social cost. As a case in point, a recent study reports that long-distance caregivers miss an average of 20 hours of work per month. These and other findings are found in "Miles Away: The MetLife Study of Long-distance Caregiving." The study was a cooperative effort of the MetLife Mature Market Institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving. Although the study methodology appears to have some rough edges related to sample selection and response rate, the qualitative data are useful to understanding the plight of America's caregivers as reported by those who chose to participate in the study. "Miles Away" study reports the following characteristics of the long-distance caregivers (LDC) who participated in the survey. LDCs live an average of 450 miles away from their loved one. LDCs spend an average of $392 per month on travel and caregiving expenses. 50% of LDCs spend one full workday per week in caregiving. 44% re-arrange their work schedules for caregiving. 36% miss days of work due to caregiving responsiblities. The report findings, while helpful, may not represent the general population of all U.S. caregivers. For example, the survey response rate (8,438) was meager, less than 11 percent of the 79,851 who agreed to participate. All who agreed to participate are on-line computer users, making the findings generalizable only to the population of LDCs who are on-line computer users. Of that group, the findings are representative of those LDC on-line computer users who agreed to participate, and further limited to those who actually responded to the survey. This "Miles Away" study by MetLife and the National Alliance for Caregiving has started the ball rolling again. Society needs to understand the plight of the family caregiver. If indeed, family care-givers provide 80% of all elder care, then we need to understand how these courageous caregivers can be supported in their heroic efforts. Otherwise, if the family caregiver community collapses due to the burden of caregiving, then government efforts in the area of eldercare would have to increase by 400 percent in order to take up the slack. Something to think about. Let's have more studies on how society can support the efforts of the family caregiver, before it's too late. The complete report, "Miles Away: The MetLife Study of Long-distance Caregiving" is available on-line at: www.maturemarketinstitute.com See related articles in AgeVenture archives. AgeVenture Headline News AgeVenture Lifestyle Features

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