Who is receiving family caregiving support? - 2024 07 29

 

Our frail, elder mother has complex health needs and cannot fend for herself. We have moved her in with us and we are providing for all her needs. We are a family providing long term caregiving for our family member who cannot live independently. In some cases, there are families providing long term caregiving to friends, who are not technically family members, but who are receiving the support of family-based caregiving operations. Other families are providing extra-ordinary caregiving supports to children who do not fall within the expected norms of childcare. Other families are providing for adults who cannot live independently and require ongoing family-based caregiving.

For the purpose of this project, I am writing about family caregiving operations that support family and friends who cannot live independently and are cared for in a family home instead of an institution. These families are providing a bed, and all the operations infrastructure that bed entails, to ensure the health and well being of their caregiving beneficiary. 

In this project, the focus is on the family who is providing and operating a home-based caregiving bed. We assume that there will be circumstances unique to each family undertaking this work, there will also be factors in common across all of these households. For the purposes of this writing, there is no specific age, disease, accident, or condition that excludes a family caregiving household from this focus. If a family is providing a caregiving bed that would otherwise be located in an institution, they belong and deserve to be understood.

At present, the most inclusive term I have come across to identify the beneficiary of family caregiving is 'care recipient'. I will use this term going forward.