Recognizing and Supporting Family Caregivers: The Time Has Come

At kitchen tables across America, millions of families today live the “new normal” of family caregiving for an older relative or close friend with chronic illness or disability (Feinberg, Reinhard, Houser, & Choula, 2011; Sheehy, 2010). Typically, they struggle with the emotional and financial question: How can we care for mom or dad, or another loved one? And if and when the time comes, who will care for us? The need to recognize and support caregiving families is among the least appreciated but most important issues the United States faces as our population ages. A substantial and growing body of research, spanning over 35 years, shows that family caregiving can be stressful, burdensome, and costly. Yet family caregiving generally has been viewed as a private issue, largely overlooked in public policy. The recent Federal Commission on Long-Term Care (the Commission) took a significant step to elevate the debate about the central importance of building a better system to support people with long-term services and supports (LTSS) needs and their family caregivers. Its report views family caregiving as a public issue that can no longer be ignored and calls for national policies to acknowledge and support them. The aging of the baby boomers and dramatic changes in the way health care and supportive services are delivered and reimbursed add to the urgency of addressing these issues now.