Paid Caregiving by Julia Montales Nidea

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:37:37 UTC

This source details the exploration of formal caregivers, but still provides insight on the impacts made on patients and family of the patients.

Family caregivers with support from paid caregivers saw an increased level of purpose, as the shared responsibilities between the formal caregiver.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:44:57 UTC

Paying family caregivers emphasizes their feelings of personal value and not being taken for granted, as compensation follows their efforts in caring for a family member.

This article highlights cons as well, which will be addressed in the next column.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:45:15 UTC

This sources provides several demographics on caregivers such as their employment status, gender, income, race, and age.

Focusing more on their relationship between their care recipient, a large majority are related to them. More than half who volunteered to be a paid caregiver considered themselves to be the primary caregiver.

A large reason for people becoming caregivers was to ensure the wellbeing of their loved one.

Although voluntary caregiving is the largest reported demographic, almost half of the population of caregivers stated they did not intend to get into this position. This could be due to financial strain, other responsibilities, and concern for their own family.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:45:30 UTC

There are several resources caregivers can reach out to which include medical, non medical care for their loved one, and personal care resources that can alleviate pent up emotions.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:46:02 UTC

Family caregiving is a 24-7 or on call job. Managing a family member's health can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate depending on that member's needs.

Symptoms of stress can include compassion fatigue, ambiguous loss, and a loss of personal identity.

High levels of stress are connected to health issues that can develop into diseases later down the line.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:46:17 UTC

The long term impact of caregiver burnout can manifest into disease. Although the immune system can be compromised due to high levels of stress, burnout can also become a reason of neglect for the self. This results in not only the decline of the caregiver, but the decline of the patient, as their caregiver becomes less fit to care for another person.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:47:07 UTC

Gaps between minorities and lower income families not being able to afford care has gotten larger over the past few years. There are a variety of factors affecting this barrier, namely Medicaid making cuts to the availability of paid caregiving opportunities, cuts in financial support programs such as the Children's Health Insurance Program, and drug shortages.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:47:27 UTC

Although this article does not discuss the caregiving of older adults, this still relates to family caregivers in general.

Idaho's costs to pay family caregivers went up by about 20 million dollars, leading officials to believe parents were using this program for financial gain.

Arguments against this claim were made, pointing out that family provides care whether they are paid or not. Family members are struggling because of the shortage of direct care workers, pushing them to become caregivers themselves to ensure their child received some form of accommodation.

jmnidea — 2025-09-21 18:55:17 UTC

Paid caregiving can be a source of income that can support and potentially alleviate some financial stressors, but come with limitations.

Family caregivers cannot be paid more than a formal caregiver, as an excessive amount of compensation will be repossessed by Medicaid, which can lead to the consequence of ineligibility of payment to the family.

In some states, family caregiving without proper documentation of the services provided can result in termination of compensation.

jmnidea — 2025-09-22 06:21:38 UTC

Referring back to the article from AARP, paid caregiving can potentially cause rifts in family dynamics.

Family members may feel as though a family caregiver could be using the patient as a way to get paid.