By Anonymous, Wed, April 27, 2011
According to a new survey released on April 25, one in four caregivers for ill or elderly relatives and friends suffer from depression or show some symptoms of the mental disorder.
While cases of depression in individuals who are charged with taking care of the elderly are nothing new, the new figures indicate a substantial rise from the previous percentage totals, and more importantly, higher figures than those of the U.S. general population when it comes to depression.
Recent estimates have shown that approximately nine percent of all Americans are known to show some or many symptoms of depression. These statistics were reaffirmed last year in a release by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. This percentage, obviously, is substantially less than the 25 percent occurrence of depression-like symptoms in caregivers for the ill and elderly.
A California-based company, Caring.com, commissioned the online survey which eventually got some 400 respondents. Most of the responses noted a high level of depression reported by those attending to the elderly, though there were no single reasons that earned substantially more votes than others.
The same survey found that nearly a third of family caregivers tend to spend more than 30 hours a week in that particular role. And, on top of that, nearly 77 percent of the caregivers are concerned about the impact of their responsibilities as such on their savings.
