Caring for aging parents in the last years of life
Open accessAbstract
Background: Adult children provide a large portion of end‐of‐life caregiving for older adults and make up the majority of caregivers for adults with dementia. Yet research has been limited to the hours of care that primary caregivers provide, neglecting the other ways adult children provide caregiving support. This study aims to describe the caregiving support adult children provide to their parents at the end of life and characterize differences by race and ethnicity and dementia status. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study using survey responses from the Health and Retirement Study between 2002 and 2018. The sample population ( n = 8040) included decedents aged 65 with at least one living adult child at their time of death. Caregiving support was defined as providing financial support, providing help with basic or instrumental activities of daily living (ADLs or IADLs), or coresiding with the care recipient. Respondents were stratified by self‐identified race and ethnicity as Hispanic, non‐Hispanic White, or non‐Hispanic Black. Respondents were further stratified by dementia and marital status. Results: Black and Hispanic respondents without dementia were more likely to report receiving financial help from (28.0% and 25.9%) or coresiding with their adult children (38.9% and 49.7%) compared to White respondents (15.0% receiving financial help and 23.3% coresiding) ( p < 0.05). Among respondents with dementia, 47.1% of both Black and Hispanic respondents reported coresiding with their adult children, compared to only 24.6% of White respondents ( p < 0.05). Notably, married Black and Hispanic respondents reported significantly higher rates of all support types compared to married White respondents ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: The majority of older adults at the end of life receive some form of care and support from their adult children, with Black and Hispanic older adults receiving particularly high rates of care and support from their adult children regardless of dementia or marital status.
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Compared with White caregivers, Black caregivers are more likely to provide more than 40 hours of care per week (54.3% versus 38.6%) and care for someone with dementia (31.7% versus 11.9%).
“Compared with White caregivers, Black caregivers are more likely to provide more than 40 hours of care per week (54.3% versus 38.6%) and care for someone with dementia (31.7% versus 11.9%).”
From 2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures (2024) · cites this paper as [453]
The Introduction (page unavailable) says Black older adults require more hours of care on average than White older adults, broadly supporting the direction of the hours comparison. But the paper does not report the claimed more-than-40-hours-per-week percentages or the 31.7% versus 11.9% comparison for caregivers of someone with dementia; its Dementia Status section instead compares support received by older adults with and without dementia. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredClose to half of Black and Hispanic individuals with dementia live with adult children (47.1%), compared with less than a quarter of White individuals with dementia (24.6%).
“Close to half of Black and Hispanic individuals with dementia live with adult children (47.1%), compared with less than a quarter of White individuals with dementia (24.6%).”
From 2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures (2024) · cites this paper as [453]
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2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures
(2024) · Alzheimer's & Dementia · doi:10.1002/alz.13809 · Cited by 2,536 · see citing works
- Authors
- Roberts, H. L., Bollens‐Lund, E., Ornstein, K. A., & Kelley, A. S.
- Affiliations
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
- James J. Peters VA Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Roberts, Harley L.
- Venue
- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2023-05-24
- Volume
- 71
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 2871-2877
- ISSN
- 0002-8614 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5415
- PMC
- PMC10524882
- OpenAlex
- W4377966610
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 3.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- National Institute on Aging (K24 AG062785, P01 AG066605, P30 AG028741, R01AG054540)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues
- Keywords
- end-of-life caregiving, adult children as caregivers, intergenerational caregiving, dementia, racial and ethnic differences, co-residence, financial support, activities of daily living, marital status, older adults, caregiver support
- MeSH terms
- Activities of Daily Living, Aged, Aging, Death, Dementia, Humans, Parents, Retrospective Studies, Caregivers
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