Family care and burden at the end of life

Abstract

Care at the end of life has been overlooked in the literature on family caregiving, perhaps because its duration is relatively brief compared with the assistance given to people with diseases such as Alzheimer's that can span a decade or more. In those long-term care conditions, caregiving has a dramatic impact on the health and well-being of family caregivers. Between 40% and 70% of caregivers have been found to have clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms, and as many as 50% may meet criteria for a diagnosable depressive disorder at some point in their caregiving careers.2^,3^,4^,5^,6^,7 Caregivers have been found to have an elevated risk of death compared with age- and sex-matched control subjects who are not providing care.8 The work done by Grunfeld and colleagues, along with other recent studies,9^,10 demonstrates that risks to health and well-being for caregivers assisting relatives at the end of life are similar to risks for caregivers in long-term care situations.