NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York City is trying to support the aging by finding ways to care for their caretakers.
For the past several years, Alexandra Widrick was always “on.”
She’s the mother of three young children, which is a full-time job, and after her father Marty was diagnosed Alzheimer’s, the Upper East Side mom was taking care of different people at completely different stages in their lives.
“I was just a teenager. Just a college student. Just a young adult working and living in New York and I truly feel like I just snapped my fingers and one day I was a parent of three and caregiving for my elderly dad and mom,” Widrick said.
It wasn’t until her father passed away a year ago that she saw realized she was a caregiver.
“I think when you’re in the midst of the chaos and in the midst of the day to day, it’s hard to actually take a step back and realize what your life is,” Widrick said.
In fact, Widrick is far from alone.
A first-of-its-kind survey conducted on older adults and caregivers asked respondents how they self-identify.
Up until now, the city’s Department for the Aging had only surveyed researchers.
“It is to inform how you serve a population and how you can meet their needs or their perception of their needs,” said Department for Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez. “The number of hours that people are giving towards caregiving surprised me a lot.”
The study found that nearly 30% of caregivers under 60 indicated they care for both an older adult and a minor, 54% of New Yorkers under 60 reported spending between 15 and over 30 hours per week on caregiving responsibilities, and over 40% of older adult respondents who care for others in their lives did not self-identify as a caregiver.
“It also informed me on how much work we need to do to help you identify that you are a caregiver,” Cortes-Vasquez said. “Because the earlier you identity as a caregiver, the sooner you may get support for your care recipient before it becomes a crisis.”
“You might know exactly what services and benefits are available for your parent or your aunt or your uncle. You might not know,” Cortes-Vazquez said. “And something as simple as transportation services so that you could make those arrangements for their doctor’s appointment so that you do not have to take the time off work, lose financial income, use your vacation time.”
The full State of Older New Yorkers report is being released on Friday.
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