Informal Caregivers in Formal Healthcare Settings

We, as a country and as a healthcare system, have no way to determine exactly how many family members and friends act as caregivers. However, according to this 2011 AARP report, that number tops 60 million, and were these volunteers to demand payment for their services, it would introduce a new $450 billion market. And yet, for a number of reasons, these “informal caregivers” often go unacknowledged. One reason is that there’s no simple delineation between one’s responsibility as family/friends and one’s responsibility as an official caregiver; where do we draw the line between bringing over a bowls of chicken soup and shopping for someone else’s groceries? How much of a sacrifice must be given before that line is crossed?

What Is An “Advance Directive”

Doctors, patients, and everyone in between talk about “advance directives” without really knowing what the term means. I have seen other, vaguely incorrect, iterations of the phrase, which really only serve to confuse the issue.

Simply, “advance directives” are instructions or directions (“directives”) given by a patient to his doctor and family/friends before (in “advance” of) when the instructions are necessary. Advance directives can be thought of as a medical will, to explain what to give to the patient while he is still living, rather than a legal will, to explain what to give from a patient after he has died.