This candid conversation with gerontologist Sally Duplantier, founder of Zing, and Vanessa Valerio, the co-founder of Care Indeed, explores caregiver well-being and the future of home care. As an expert in healthy aging, Sally acknowledges the extraordinarily important role that caregivers (both professional and family) will play in caring for our aging population.
In 2020, we had 1.4 billion people over 60. By 2050, that number will nearly double, according to the World Health Organization. Unfortunately, even though we are living longer, we are not living better. According to the National Council on Aging, nearly 95% of people aged 60+ have more than one chronic condition like heart disease or diabetes, and 80% have 2 or more chronic conditions.
In this webinar, Sally shares: “So now we have a perfect storm of an increasingly aging population who is sicker and needs more assistance; a strong desire on their part to ‘age in place’ at home; and low financial resources because they are living on a fixed income, and long-term home care isn’t covered by insurance.”
Sally and Vanessa discuss the role of the caregiver, which can be both rewarding and exhausting. Based on Sally’s research, she acknowledges, “There is something very positive about helping someone get healthier and make progress and have a better quality of life or at least some glimpses of happiness. However, caregivers will typically back burner their health and well-being as a result. There is also a specific type of burnout called caregiver compassion fatigue. This happens when a caregiver takes on the emotional stress and trauma of a person they are caring for. In other words, that person’s problems become their own.”
The conversation wraps with specific recommendations to help promote caregiver well-being. On the one hand, there is a systems challenge. A clear solution is more robust insurance coverage to provide better pay for professional caregivers and to offset the expenses of family caregivers.
For the agencies that run home care companies, and hire caregivers, it starts at the top with leaders who value and respect the people who work for them. There is an innate human desire to be appreciated. Unfortunately for caregivers, the people they care for often can’t express that appreciation, but this doesn’t diminish the need. Sally adds, “One reason I recommend Care Indeed to my clients is the deep caring and respect they show for both the patients they serve and the caregivers who provide this service.”