Caregiving

As life expectancy increases, many older adults in the United States are living longer with functional impairments. Informal caregivers are a significant part of the fabric of caregiving that enables older adults to avoid institutionalization. This chapter characterizes the growing population of caregivers, provides an overview of the economics of informal caregiving, discusses caregiver burden, describes different types of caregiving and settings of care, and concludes with clinical pearls for home-based medical clinicians to guide their interactions with caregivers.