Helping the helpers

A new government report extracted from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that people who are paid to care for other people in the "personal care and service industry" are the most likely to have experienced depression in the past year. Out of 21 major occupational categories, paid caregivers were the most prone to have suffered a depressive episode lasting two weeks or longer.

While this news attracted significant media attention, it did not report on nonprofessional caregivers, usually family members. Only 14 percent of adults in need of long-term care get some form of purchased assistance. Families still provide the majority of all long-term care in this country, approximately 80 percent. And the stress on these family members is significant.

As reported in Our Sunday Visitor's "In Focus" this week (see Page 9), caregivers are not always who you expect.

Well over 1 million children between the ages of 8 and 18 care for an adult relative and 5.5 million young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 care for a family member.

While the government recognizes that depression is an occupational illness for caregivers, family members themselves often don't recognize this as a sometimes-dangerous side effect of fulfilling their familial responsibilities.

The isolation of caregivers is one of the unintended side effects of our mobile society. More and more people -- from infants and children to the seriously ill and the elderly -- are living longer than ever before, thanks to modern medicine. Cost containment pressures in the medical industry force the ill to go home sooner, however, and make it extremely difficult for families to find the kind of paid care or assisted living facilities they might need.

While society in some ways retains the ideal of a family helping its own members in times of sickness and distress, the reality is that families are already more isolated than ever before.

Add to this the impact of divorce and the necessity for two working parents in many families, and the stresses become even greater, with caregivers often suffering physical and emotional illnesses while caring for others. With the first baby boomers applying for Social Security benefits and a growing nursing shortage in this country, everything we are facing now is only likely to get much worse.

Caring for the sick, the needy and the lonely is a core Christian value. Pope John Paul II, who knew a thing or two about suffering and infirmities of age, said that caring for sick relatives can "become an occasion for everyone to discover precious human and spiritual values."

As the needs of caregivers grow, government will be hard-pressed to provide aid, but parishes can play an important role in helping members of their communities who are helping others.

The idea of a community of believers helping others is also part of a wonderful little organization called the Friends of St. John the Caregiver. As reported on Page 12 of this issue, this organization has developed a "spirituality of caregiving," and it offers for free a "Little Book of Caregiver Prayers" for those who find themselves overwhelmed and in need of God's grace.

It would be a great gesture of support if parishes not only reach out to caregivers with support, but also remember to pray each week not only for the sick and the elderly in their community, but also for those who are caring for them.