Investigating Trends in Elder-Elder Caregiving in the United States: 1997 – 2014

Background: Caregiving is a difficult field to study due to the subjective nature of the data, and some of the research findings have been contradictory. Little research exists on the specific situation of elder-elder caregiving (where the caregiver is a person 64 years old and older caring for a care recipient who is also 64 years old and older.) Given the aging American population, this paper explores these elder relationships to better understand caregiving from their perspective. Methods: ANOVA tests and a Pearson Correlation Matrix were performed in Prism 8 on publicly available data sets from the National Alliance for Caregiving. This survey data was from a random sample of caregivers collected via telephone and internet in 1997, 2004, 2009, and 2014. Results: The ANOVA tests found a significant statistical difference (p < 0.0001) between the mean age of elder-elder caregivers. The post-hoc Games-Hollow test found statistically significant differences (p < 0.0001) for 1997 and 2009 when each was compared to 2014. No statistical difference was found between the mean age of elder-elder care recipients. No correlation was found between elder-elder caregiver age and level of burden experienced due to caregiving. The average length of time of caregiving for elder-elder caregivers was approximately 5 years for each year of survey administration. Conclusion: The lack of prior investigation on the elder-elder caregiving population may be concealing the needs of this specific population. Further research could help society prioritize education and inform action plans that assist elde-eldercaregivers, so that a) they may have a high quality of life near the end of life, and b) that their caregiving workload does not shift to stressed institutional health care systems.