¶ … workers engaging in eldercare-related activities are prone to suffer from stress-related factors and workplace absenteeism as opposed to non-caregiving workers. This hypothesis was confirmed by Lee in her study; 67 employees from a financial institution were interviewed while questionnaires were administered to 169 workers from a healthcare institution. Caregivers from study 1 were prone to absenteeism as well as incidences of insomnia, weight loss and tiredness. The second study confirmed the same incidences as study 1; weight loss among caregivers, drowsiness, sleeplessness as well as nervousness; however, the degree of absenteeism was not different among caregivers and non-caregivers. In line with this, it was confirmed that caregivers' tasks negatively impacted their workplace performance (Lee, 1997). Based on the results, it was confirmed that a balance between caregiving-related activities and work has the effect of bringing about stress and physical tiredness which ultimately affects workplace performance. Regarding absenteeism, it is theorized the different results from the two studies was due to different working conditions, employees' term as well as household income. Nonetheless, these results act as supporting evidence for the conflict theory of relationship between caregiving tasks and workplace performance. The study's findings reinforce the hypothesis that balancing caregiving tasks and work is likely to bring about stress as well as physical burnout often resulting in poor workplace performance. In addition, the studies acknowledge that caregivers' status is correlated with drowsiness which interferes with work leading to proneness to mistakes and accidents. Moreover, the study highlights that caregivers were often overwhelmed by striving to strike balance between work and caregiving tasks.
Despite being confronted with primary objective stressors and have better health resources compared to caregiving partners, children often report more primary subjective stressors and seem generally more burdened, especially caring daughters (Perrig-Chiello & Hutchison, 2010). In this regard, a research conducted by Hutchison and Chiello agrees that family caregiving is a stressful process characterized with negative physical and psychological outcomes. Besides, the research upholds that stress associated with caregiving negatively impacts quality of life, morbidity and mortality, as well as socio-economic outcomes. As opposed to other common reference groups, informal caregivers have increased depressive symptoms, elevated levels of distress, anxiety and use of psychotropic drugs. Due to this, the psychological health aspect of the caregivers becomes more affected than their physical health. As a concern, this study's findings present a differential view on family caregivers' stressors, resources, and well-being. In this regard, the distinction between gender and kinship degree indicates the complexity as well as divergence of investment and perceived burden among family caregivers. From the research it is found that though caregivers face severe primary objective stressors and have less health resources, they have less primary subjective and secondary stressors than adult children. Besides, their well-being is affected to a lesser degree than caregiving children and adult child caregivers are more burdened than spousal caregivers. This is possible to the fact that younger caregivers initiate several familial and job-related responsibilities which bring to them additional stress; most are employed and are supposed to care for both older and younger family members. Moreover, compared to men, women have more negative subjective health; feel greater burden as well as negative impact of the caregiving situation on their health.
The number of hours spent by an employee in providing care or interacting with elderly parents directly brings about conflict between the roles of employee and caregiver. Therefore, inter-role conflict can be used to predict absence from work (Hepburn & Barling, 1996). In addition, the study upholds that as time progresses, elder care becomes more difficult and complicated; this may be facilitated by sudden onset of injury or illness. As a result of this, the quantity and type of care required may gradually change with time. From the findings it was proved that spending several hours of daily interaction providing care to elderly parents has the effect of leading to both parent-care interference with work role conflict and work interference with parent-care role conflict. Due to this, employee partial absence from work including arriving late and leaving early often result from such types of inter-role conflict. The study ascertains that partial absence from work is as a result of engaging in activities such as taking patients to and from appointments, preparing meals; which are consistent with caregiver absence for only part of the workday. Moreover, it is proved that partial absence from work is influenced by the number of hours used in interaction with parents as well as hours of care provided...
Additionally, the article unveils that parent-care interference with work role conflict and work interference with parent-care role conflict directly influences workplace partial absence. Based on these findings, organizations are advised to tackle the relationship between inter-role conflict and partial absence.
Family caregivers have difficulties providing care to members suffering from dementia. From the article, it is argued that family members shy away from substitutive caregiving roles requiring them to undertake activities that the primary caregiver is unable to perform (Davis, 1997). As a concern, caregivers fear using substitute caregivers due to belief that family members are responsible for the cognitively impaired elders. Complementary care entails performance of different tasks by different persons; this caregiving is infrequently used by caregivers since family members are able to perform these tasks independently such as managing finances and household chores. Nevertheless, this type of care presents indirect involvement between the impaired person and the caregiver and when complementary services are required; caregivers work as case managers by outsourcing for complementary care services outside the family. The next type of care is conjoint which entails that all family members collaborate with the caregiver and with the impaired elder as well. In this regard, this caregiving task requires the family members to negotiate with the caregiver concerning stressful issues. However, when the caregivers are constantly faced with avoidance behaviors of other family members, they gradually become angry and may suffer from depression. Moreover, if the caregivers are unable to mobilize the required energy to function as case managers, they ultimately shun family resources.
Elder-care responsibility directly brings about low levels of satisfaction with perceived organizational support, leave benefits, and work-family balance, as opposed to child-related care which brings about conflicts regarding leave benefits and work-family balance. Nonetheless, child-care is also influenced by gender; it has negative influence on women's work-family balance and leave satisfaction (Buffardi, Smith, O'Brien, & Erdwins, 1999). From this research it was proved that individuals engaging in elder-care tasks were less satisfied with organizational support, work leave as well as work-family balance. It is argued that this stems out from the fact that elder-caregiving has fewer support mechanisms and besides, interpersonal benefits for caregiving are limited since the elders gradually lose mental, cognitive as well as physical abilities. For children the major issue arises due to leave benefits and work-family benefits; caregivers with school-going children require more time off to deal with situations affecting their children. In addition, it is argued that women are more likely to take the primary caregiving role with children, while men with children are unlikely than their wives to take leave when confronted with child-care conflicts.
Questions to ask 60-year-old Mother
A caregiver's task requires constant monitoring of the elderly and finding the right caregiver to take care of them is not always an easy task. Below are some questions that can help an interviewer get started in understanding how a 60-year-old takes care of her mother suffering from Alzheimer's and is able to balance her work and family roles.
1. Share one simple yet practical piece of advice you would give to family members/caregivers of Alzheimer's and Dementia patients as well as those suffering from non-Alzheimer's Dementia.
2. What is one little known technique (be it an exercise, medical therapy, best practice, etc.) you use when caring for your mom suffering from Alzheimer's?
3. What are some important questions to ask if your loved one has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or other forms of Dementia?
4. How do you feel about caring for an elderly disabled person with memory problems?
5. Do you have any work experience in caregiving or similar areas?
6. Do your caregiving activities affect your family and job responsibilities?
7. In a very general sense, can you frame how big an issue is caring for your parent?
8. What are some of the big issues that people deal with in caring for their parents?
9. One of the issues that we have heard a lot about is the financial difficulties. But what I have seen in a few cases that we looked at is if you are wealthy enough, you can take care of yourself. If you are sort of poor enough, you are actually fairly well taken care of by the state. Where is it become difficult financially?
10. What is the best thing to do to prepare psychologically, trying to start loving them maybe more than you did in the past? But, from a practical point-of-view, what is the best thing that anybody can do to prepare for long-term care insurance of their parents?
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