November is National Caregiver Month, a time to honor those who dedicate themselves to caring for a family member, friend or neighbor. It's a role that often goes unrecognized, yet it can take a real toll on a person's work, family life, and mental health.
Latoya Lewis is an associate professor of clinical at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies. She's also a caregiver for her mother and children.
WLRN's Helen Acevedo recently spoke to her about the complexities of this role and the steps caregivers can take to support their loved ones while also caring for themselves.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Can you explain what a caregiver is?
We say the caregivers are the ones that are unpaid, who actually are showing love through action. So this person is not working as a job to care for this individual. You are providing them with care. Whether the care is bathing them, cooking for them, taking them to appointments, providing anything that this person needs in order to survive.
Millennials and Gen Xers are feeling this burden more than ever. Why is that, and what kind of challenges are they facing?
So the key thing that we're looking at with these generations is these individuals are still in their career or their earning years. So what's happening is people are experiencing, I call it a caregiver gap, because you're either providing care.
For children, if you choose to have children, you're providing care for them. But then you may have an older parent who also needs your support, whether they need your full-time support, your part-time support, some space of you is splitting into three places. So that's where it's creating a challenge because people are feeling overwhelmed and they're saying, "okay, I have these three things to do in a matter of 24 hours. I don't have enough hours to get this done." And that then creates anxiety [and] depression. They're so overwhelmed to the point that they can't really communicate that well because what we see in those two generations are individuals may have had, because of culture, religion, race, ethnicity, have beliefs that "if I complain, I am causing a problem to the family."
What kind of toll does this take on caregivers? On their mental health, their careers, their family life?
In regards to their careers, what we found in different research [is that] they're missing days at work. They're coming to work and they're not performing at a hundred percent capacity. Next, with family, there's a dynamic that the family may feel that they're not present all the time. They're always thinking about the next thing. So, that could impact connections. Mental health is a challenge because it depends on how that person views mental health and how they grew up with it. And then last but not least, it's impacting their overall health. Because what we know is the more stress our body is under, the more at risk we are for chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, just to name a few.
Does South Florida have any unique challenges or advantages when it comes to families taking on that role of a caregiver?
What we found recently is we're having high incidences of people having housing instability.
That refers to someone is saying it's past the level of living paycheck to paycheck. It's more that [they] think [they] might be homeless in the next month, two months, three months. It's either because of job or it's because of other factors. What's happening with market values? [they're] going up. So, a place you may have lived at before for a $1,000 a month [is] now $2,500 a month for the same place. So, that then creates an issue for South Florida people who are caregivers, because now you're expected to still try to provide a safety net and protection for your family. But on average, some statistics are saying just for four people to live in South Florida, you at least need to be making $160,000 annually.
So, that presents with an issue. The benefit of South Florida though, is because of the cultural diversity throughout South Florida, there are a lot of communities that are coming together to create resources for mental health. Also, there are individuals that are now starting businesses because they realize construction is the benefit and people are adding on spaces if they own their home, in order to bring that parent to the house.
Those are two benefits to it, but essentially, it's causing a little more stress than it is a benefit in South Florida.
What kind of advice would you give to other caregivers who may be struggling to balance everything, how they can take care of themselves while also caring for others?
I always say the first thing that I want them to do is be aware that they're feeling overwhelmed.
Awareness is very important. If you don't label it or recognize it, how would you know when it's becoming too much? Next one, I say breathe because that breath can really give you an opportunity to just pause even if you can't leave an area. Next thing, sun. Get some exposure outside. Do not keep yourself indoors all day. The sun can give you replenishing energy and it can give you another sense.
And last but not least, self-care. Make a doctor's appointment, get your physical done, do a checkup, [check if there] is there a mental health specialist. I encourage people to take away the stigma piece by piece about seeing a mental health specialist. It's really a person who could look outside the situation and give you tools.
You've said that when policies fail, families become the safety net. What kind of policies or changes do you think could help ease that burden?
Policy is looking now at what is the basic income somebody needs to survive and to live.
So that's one aspect that I know I lobby for patients when I go to D.C. Something else that is important is looking at mental health. How are organizations providing holistic wellness to their employees? So what you're seeing now is some organizations are saying "we can do work-life balance classes, we can do caregiver classes. We are now partnering with different daycares to give our people percentages. Oh look, our family medical leave policy now is seamless. We are supporting the holistic needs." But I must say that there's still some work to be done in regards to caregivers. There's still a gap of how people are getting care, and there's some bias involved in healthcare right now where people are dying because they're not believed about pain. So we're trying to increase awareness that everybody's not getting the same level of care.
