| Shalini Kathuria Narang

| “Real strength is in vulnerability. You don’t have to hold it up on your own. There is plenty of support out there,” says actor Patrick Dempsey in the 2025 documentary Caregiving. Patrick and his family, including his sister Mary, were caregivers for his mother, Amanda, who battled ovarian cancer for 17 years. The family’s experience as caregivers led them to establish the Dempsey Center—a free care center for cancer patients and their families in Maine.

Read our interview with director Chris Durrance

Nearly a third of Americans over age 50 provide regular care to an adult relative or friend with a health issue or a disability, according to the latest findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging conducted by National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago for the University of Michigan (U-M) Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Many of them are unaware of local resources that can help them with caregiving.

The findings also suggest a need for increased awareness of existing programs such as adult day programs and respite care, and local organizations like Area Agencies on Aging, that address the needs of adults aged 60 and older and their caregivers. Such programs can connect caregivers to services, support, and resources that can reduce caregiver burden and improve the day-to-day care that they provide.

Caregiving and Caregiver Support

The poll finds 22% of people over 50 served as caregivers in the last year for an adult with health or disability needs who they don’t live with, and 12% did so for someone they live with. Seventeen percent of caregivers say they do not have the support they need to manage their caregiving responsibilities. Among the caregivers who also reported they did not have close friends or family to depend on for help with their own needs, 41% said they lack the support they need.

That’s compared with a much lower percentage saying they don’t have support for caregiving responsibilities (11%), among caregivers who do have friends and family to depend on for their own health needs.

“This is an issue we need to keep our eyes on as our nation continues to grapple with the growing demand for unpaid, untrained caregiving for older adults and for people with disabilities and serious health needs,” says Florence Johnson, an Assistant Professor in the U-M School of Nursing and member of Institute of Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI). “Our poll shows that 23% of all people over 50, including many who are already caregivers for one or more adults, may lack family or friends to help them if they need support with health needs. But they may not know where or how to find services.”

Read our interview with Johnson

Financial Impacts of Caregiving

Caregivers often take time off from work if they’re employed or spend money on transportation and other expenses to provide care. But most family or friend caregivers cannot receive pay from insurance or government sources for their efforts, except in rare cases.

Just over one-third of caregivers said caregiving resulted in financial challenges for them. The percentage was higher (40%) among those aged 50 to 64 than those over age 65 (27%). It was also higher among caregivers whose own physical or mental health is fair or poor, or who have a disability themselves.

The percentage citing a financial challenge from caregiving was also higher (47%) among caregivers who say they don’t have family or friends to help with their own health needs.

Among all caregivers who feel they don’t have enough support to manage their caregiving responsibilities, 69% reported financial assistance or subsidies for caregiving expenses as the primary area of need.

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Day Programs and Respite Care: Lack of Awareness and Use

The poll also asked caregivers about their awareness of, and use of, programs that many communities have made available for people with disabilities and older adults.

The first was adult day programs, where a caregiver can bring their relative or friend to take part in supervised, structured activities for a few hours to a full day, together with other people in their age group or with similar conditions or disabilities. Such programs can give a caregiver a chance to take time for themselves or catch up on work, or just relieve stress.

The elder care solution that everyone with aging parents should know about (Vox)

Only 9% of caregivers said the person they care for had used such programs, while 60% said they hadn’t used one but the caregivers had heard of them. That left 21% of caregivers who haven’t ever heard of adult day programs and 10% who didn’t know if the person they care for had ever attended an adult day program.

The poll also suggests communities could use many channels to get the word out about adult day programs, and any costs or sliding-scale fees involved. Among caregivers who had heard of adult day programs, there was no one way that people most frequently reported hearing about them.

Another option for caregivers and the people they care for is respite care, which provides a “break” from caregiving through a paid or unpaid helper coming to the home, a short-term stay in a residential facility, or an emergency respite (for example, if a caregiver has a sudden health issue).

Among caregivers who felt they don’t have the support they need, 39% said that respite care or temporary relief from caregiving was a service that could help them the most with their caregiving responsibilities.

Yet only 11% of all caregivers had used any form of respite, while 57% hadn’t used it but had heard of it, and 32% had never heard of it. Male caregivers were much more likely to say they had never heard of it.

Of those caregivers who had used respite care, 33% said it was to take time for themselves, and 33% said it was to relieve stress and prevent burnout.

Poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the U-M Medical School who provides primary care to veterans at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System said it’s important for health care providers to be attuned to their patients’ roles as caregivers, and to the family or friend caregivers who may be taking care of them.

“We see a real awareness gap here, and health care providers can help by making sure that information about local resources is available in waiting areas, patient education packets and more,” says Kullgren.  “If our patients are feeling unsupported or stressed as caregivers, it can affect their own mental and physical health, and their ability to keep up with healthy habits that are important for long-term healthy aging. Making sure they know about adult day programs and respite care could be a way to help them make caregiving sustainable.

Shalini Kathuria Narang is a Bay Area-based freelance journalist. She has reported and written on health, wellness, diaspora, travel, technology and trends.