Age is just a number, but must be considered among unpaid carers

Research published by Age UK shows too many older unpaid carers aren’t living as well as they should.

In aid of Carers Week Age UK are calling on the government to provide better support for older unpaid carers. Today (Friday 13^th June) the charity published new research which illustrates why help is vital.

The research, which was conducted via a survey, found 2.1 million carers are aged over 65 and 420,000 are over 80.

While age shouldn’t obstruct what people want to do with their life – they say ‘you’re only as old as you feel’ – the research outlines that older unpaid carers have expressed concerns about whether they’ll be able to continue to look after a loved one. Experts found 900,000 older carers felt tired and anxious because of the support they provide.

One of the carers who took part in the survey said: ‘Although my 94-year-old mum, who has dementia, lives in her own bungalow with carers who visit four times a day, I am responsible for all her finances, shopping, organising her house and garden.

‘I also have an 84-year-old husband with heart failure, so I am basically running two households. Running between two homes and all that entails, along with the emotional stress, has begun to take its toll and I find I worry more about things which affects my sleep, and I get extremely tired, both physically and mentally.’

Against this backdrop, the report from Age UK also shows loneliness is a serious problem for older carers, 350,000 to be exact.

‘My mother passed away 12 months ago, until then I was her sole carer,’ another carer involved in the research, said. ‘This made me feel unsupported, alone and worried for the future. I cannot leave the house for anything other than a short period of time.

‘That makes me feel trapped and fed up, but I’m not clinically depressed (yet). I am a carer for my husband. This means that I do not have time to take part in, what were, my normal interests and have little connection with others. Family all live away. My husband has dementia, and I provide care for him. It is quite tiring, and I feel quite alone sometimes.’

Other findings from the research found:

• 55% of older carers have a long-term illness or disability – the equivalent to 1.2 million people
• 66% of older carers lost sleep over worry, which equates to 1.4 million people
• 74% of older carers feel under strain
• 62% of older carers felt unhappy or depressed

‘Providing more support for carers of all ages, including older carers, should be a national priority,’ Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said. ‘We will certainly be saying that to Baroness Casey as the work of her Commission into the future of social care gets seriously underway.

‘Unpaid carers, including those in later life, are the foundations on which our entire social care system is built and we put them under intolerable, unrelenting pressure at our peril.

‘As this Carer’s Week emphasises, too many unpaid carers of all ages are being treated unequally because they are unable to enjoy the basics the rest of us take for granted, such as opportunities for recreation, rest and leisure. Really, this is the least that older carers deserve, and we will be pressing the government to deliver it.’

Photo by Artyom Kabajev via UnSplash

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