Caregiving can be stressful and tiring, and some people experience depression as a result. Treatment can involve medication, talk therapy, and self-care strategies. Depression can result from the intense demands of taking care of someone who cannot carry out their usual daily activities.
Not only do caregivers spend significantly more hours per week providing care, they report more employment problems, personal stress, mental and physical health problems, lack of sleep, less time to do the things they enjoy, less time to spend with other family members, and more family conflict than non-dementia ...
A conservative estimate reports that 20% of family caregivers suffer from depression, twice the rate of the general population.
Caregiver syndrome, also known as caregiver burnout or caregiver stress, is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that is experienced by many individuals who care for a loved one who is aging or chronically ill.
Signs such as avoiding the loved one, anger, fatigue, depression, impaired sleep, poor health, irritability or that terrible sense that there is “no light at the end of the tunnel” are warnings that the caregiver needs time off and support with caregiving responsibilities.
Depression can result from the intense demands of taking care of someone who cannot carry out their usual daily activities. The demands of a caregiving role can cause stress and take a toll on a person's health, employment, and family relationships.
Caregivers of severely ill individuals often struggle to adjust to new responsibilities and roles while experiencing negative psychological outcomes that include depression, anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Many caregivers also feel guilty if they spend time on themselves rather than on their ill or elderly loved ones. Caregivers who are "burned out" may experience fatigue, stress, anxiety and depression.
Seek Professional Help. If you're struggling to keep your head above water physically and emotionally, it's time to get some assistance. You can explore adult daycare and in-home care options in your community, but the long-term answer might be to move your parent into an assisted living facility.
Caregiver burden is defined as the all-encompassing challenges felt by caregivers with respect to their physical and emotional well-being, family relations, and work and financial status (Pearlin et al., 1990; Zarit et al., 1985).
You may feel like you don't have any free time. Caregiving is also hard because you often see many changes in your loved one: The person you're caring for may not know you anymore. He or she may be too ill to talk or follow simple requests.
The three psychological symptoms such as stress, anxiety and depression were high among respondents with age 20 years and above, which was in line with the current meta-analytic review, where psychological distress such as stress, anxiety and depression were common in primary caregivers.
Almost half of the caregivers, who provide care for more than 40 h a week, are diagnosed to have depressive symptoms. They are also at higher risk of having depressive symptoms (AOR 1.59 CI 1.16–2.18) and poor SRH (AOR 1.73 CI 1.11–2.69) than those who invest less than 40 h in a week.
Caregivers are at elevated risk for developing mental health disorders, so caregivers should, at a minimum, be screened for these conditions. In some situations a full diagnostic evaluation is appropriate (e.g., a caregiver asking for treatment for depression).
Symptoms of caregiver stress symptom may include changes in appetite, weight or both; feeling blue, hopeless, irritable, or helpless; withdrawal from friends and family; changes in sleep patterns; getting sick more often; feelings of wanting to hurt yourself or the person for whom you are caring; loss of interest in ...
Unfortunately, there's no set timeline for recovery from caregiver burnout. Some people can recover in a few days, and others can take years. Every person is different, and they need different things.
If the stress of caregiving is left unchecked, it can take a toll on your health, relationships, and state of mind—eventually leading to burnout, a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion. And when you get to that point, both you and the person you're caring for suffer.
Caregivers with discordant levels of stress and strain (i.e., low perceived stress/high strain) compared with low stress/low strain had the shortest RTL (difference = −0.24; P = 0.02, Pinteraction = 0.13), corresponding to approximately 10–15 additional years of aging.