By Robin Erb
Bridge Michigan
It never occurred to Mary and Bill Hase not to care for their friend, Ed Niemi, just as they did for his late brother, who had multiple health problems, after the brothers’ mother died.
“Maybe that’s why they call me a mother hen,” says Mary Hase, who helps the Munising resident sort medications and clean house while her husband helps with yard work and nudges Ed — who can struggle with personal care — that it’s time to take a shower or change his clothes.
“It’s just who we are,” she said.
The words “care partner” or “caregiver” often conjure thoughts of family ties: a sandwich-generation child or an overwhelmed spouse.
But Mary Hase, 67, is one of more than 2.4 million Americans who are quietly helping friends delay the need for social services and avoid nursing homes despite having no blood or legal ties to them, according to a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We’re missing the boat by just thinking about primary caregivers when there’s actually a larger network — or a lot of my caregivers prefer the word ‘team’ — involved,” said Amanda Leggett, a researcher at the Wayne State University Institute of Gerontology and lead author.
The findings are important in Michigan — a state aging faster than most others, while also struggling with transportation gaps; loneliness, uneven funding for and gaps in aging services and severe shortages in health care.
Without support, many Michigan seniors end up in nursing homes. That can cost an average of $350 a day per Medicaid resident — about 2 ½ times as much as in-home care, according to some estimates.
Leggett’s findings were based on questions asked of 2,619 older adults with activity limitations in the National Health and Aging Trends Study conducted at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The data also reaffirm what another team of Michigan researchers — this time at University of Michigan — identified last year as a “significant disconnect” between the traditional view of caregiver and what’s really happening.
Leggett and her team also found differences between caregivers who are friends and those who are relatives. Compared to family caregivers, friend caregivers typically:
- Provided fewer hours of care
- Were less likely to provide intimate personal care
- Were less likely to be the sole caregiver
- Were more likely to provide care on a variable schedule
- Were more likely to focus care on specific tasks, such as providing rides
