Formal and Informal Caregivers in the USA - Essay Example

? Formal and Informal Caregivers in The USA Formal and informal caregivers in the USA Introduction Formal and informal caregivers provide health services in the USA. Caregivers are individuals who offer assistance to personalities who are unable to perform some basic chores on their own because of physical impairments, which result from birth or have acquired them through life. The caregivers can be categorized into two, the formal and the informal. Informal caregivers are family members or friends who offer such services mostly in a home setting to the needy. Formal caregivers, on the other hand, can be paid or volunteer professionals who offer the services primarily in health care facility setting. Approximately eleven million Americans are receiving either formal or informal health care at every particulate time (Nay & Garrat 2009). Changing demand for caregivers in the USA Most people who are in dire need of care giving are the aged. This is so because of two main reasons, having lived a longer life than the young people hence entitled to higher probabilities of the effects of disease and accidents, and two is because of the incapacitation that comes with old age. Demographic results show that, in the history of the United States, the rate of increase of the young people was more than that of the old people (Smith 2007). Care giving was, therefore, safe to the old with such statistics. Today things are different; the proportion of increase of the percentage of older people is higher than that of the young. This is because of the increased improvements in the healthcare sector that has led to a significant decline to mortality rates accompanied declines in birth rates. Birth rates have been declining because the probability of a child maturing is higher than in the past, this tendency has significantly influenced family planning. Demographic statisticians have extrapolated by the year 2050 the populace of the United States above 65 years may have increased by more than eight percent. Today we already know that the need of care increases with age and the number of young caregivers is decreasing in relation to the increasing number of the aged. From this fact, we can already foresee the danger that lies ahead. The situation is worse in areas where farming is the central activity. In those regions, the energetic young populace is moving in large numbers to cities in the search for quality education and jobs. The decrease and loss of the informal caregivers shifts the burden both to the government and to the individuals affected. Prior measures have in this regard tried to be exploited. One of such is replacement human caregivers by mechanical devices. Telehomecare is another program that was integrated to counter these changes. In this program, the patient can communicate with the caregiver through electronic devices. There installed machines installed to monitor the health of the patients miles away, and locomotive devices to help patients move in their environs with ease among many other such techniques (Nay & Garrat, 2009). Formal caregivers can be trained paid or volunteer professionals affiliated to a health service system. These individuals are very few compared to the estimate of those regarded as informal caregivers (Caro, 2006). The significant difference apart from size is the dimension of the services they offer. Trained personalities tend to offer assistance for complex situations since most of the time they are working they either called to the place of emergency or patients brought to them. Focusing on the trends of formal caregivers, this relates hand in hand with the retirement age in the United States of America. These individuals can be mostly employed and retire when their time comes. The tendency of an increasing size of the old population and a decreasing size of the young population also affects the skilled healthcare providers. Response of the US government in regard to the changes The USA have in this light been formulating and implementing policies towards a higher Medicare Prospective Payment System that delves into strategies on how to reduce costs on the providence of care. The Green card movement that allows young people from developing countries to migrate, settle and become American citizens is one of them (Uhlenberg, 2009). This program can increase the population of the current young people and future generations. . The USA still has a long way to go to attain the status of more young as compared to the old because of a number of reasons. Firstly is the increased use of contraceptives and other family planning methodologies among the young. This results to a reducing birthrate and thus a small population of the young in future. The increasing numbers of single parent family also works towards reducing the birthrates significantly. The growing scholarly culture makes the young people to put more consideration in academic achievement rather than the continuation of the family tree, is another significant factor to consider Factors that contribute to the growth of informal caregivers There are a myriad of factors that lead to the growth of informal caregivers and thus this paper tackles a number of them. First is diversification of education and careers (Caro, 2006). The growth of education has been able to embrace all personalities in society to higher levels of education and career. This has led to enormous increases in literacy levels. This has, therefore, led to a situation where almost can provide care to a victim. This diversification has also robbed the medical sector a significant figure of human resource that could have led into it. Modernization of the states has also led to a significant decrease in rural urban migration primarily among the young as opposed to the past. The government has formulated policies that allow the devolvement of funds, equitable distribution of wealth and decentralization of industries. These policies have increased job vacancies all over the states and promoted the construction of social amenities, health care facilities inclusive. The change in modern families has also led to increase in informal care givers. The rise of single parent families, either matriarchal or patriarchal, have led to grandparents have the grandchildren to both daughters and sons close to them. Most of the children born out of wedlock are also left to the grandparents to raise them up as the parents continue with careers and academics (Smith, 2007). Most of these children leave the vicinity of their grandparents when joining college and thus during the period of being raised upkeep providing care services to their grandparents. Conclusion The role of informal caregivers cannot be under-estimated in the USA. Demographic statistics reflecting higher percentages of the young people than the aged should be used to devise ways of achieving the vice-versa. In the meantime, the government should devise strategies for outsourcing funds for the health care center in order to increase human resource, machines and research on telehomecare. The personnel working in the care giving sector should be provided better terms of work so as to act like an incentive for other young people to join the field. In the regions still experiencing mass migration of the young people into towns, decentralization of firms should be encouraged, and incentives should be given to investors to invest in the regions. References Caro, F. G. (2006). Family and aging policy. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press. Nay, R., & Garratt, S. (2009). Older people: Issues and innovations in care. Sydney: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier. Smith, G. (2007). Families, carers and professionals: Building constructive conversations. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. Uhlenberg, P. (2009). International handbook of population aging. Dordrecht: Springer. Read More