According to some estimates, there are anywhere between 40 and 44 million adults caring for an older family member or friend. As the aging population begins to grow, the demands on the individuals who care for them will increase as well.
One issue that many of these caregivers face is a lack of information from medical providers once their loved ones leave the hospital. PBS's NewsHour program recently featured the story of Kristen and Cheryl Mitchem, a mother and daughter pair caring for the family patriarch, Alphus, who has a malignant form of brain cancer.
Their daily responsibilities include managing multiple prescriptions, administering injections and changing and cleaning feeding tubes.
"What I learned was by watching the nurses," Cheryl Mitchem told the source. "I was never instructed how to do anything. They never did demonstrations, had me try anything. I don't feel like I had enough training at all for this. We have kind of learned by trial and error."
The AARP estimates that nearly half of family caregivers regularly perform tasks that were once limited to trained nurses. This lack of instruction is often a contributing factor of a care recipient being readmitted to the hospital. For this reason, the AARP has been working with legislatures in several states to give caregivers a legal designation.
Such bills would require caregivers to be listed on a patient's chart and would mandate training for skills they will need once their loved one comes home. Oklahoma is the first state to pass such a law, and Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey have similar bills under consideration.
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