Post 1 and Post 2 here.

The Effects of Caregiving on Women

• Caregiving is hard physical work that increases a women’s chance of injury. One in eight AD family caregivers becomes ill or injured as a direct result of caregiving. One in three use medication for problems related to caregiving.
• More than 50% of caregiving women experience depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and feelings of helplessness.
• Caregiving responsibilities can also endanger women’s economic security. Time away from the job to care for a family member with disability or chronic illness is reflected in lower wages, lower Social Security benefits, and higher health costs.

Women Need Long Term Care

• 75% of all nursing home residents 65 years or older are women. The typical nursing home resident is an 85-year-old woman who enters a nursing home because she lives alone no caregiver is available.
• 80% of the elderly poor are women-unable to pay for long term care or to purchase long term care insurance. The yearly median income of women 65 and over in 1990 was $8,044.

Women have Reason for Hope

• Drug treatments are available from your physician that may temporarily improve symptoms and behaviors related to Alzheimer’s disease.
• Recent studies suggest that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and vitamin E may offer some protection to nerve cells in the brain.