Resources

Do you awaken at night to help your husband to the bathroom? Do you arrange your schedule to fit your mother's doctors' appointments? You are not alone. According to the 2003 National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP National Caregiver Survey, at least 44.4 million adults provide the care that is so critical in helping friends and loved ones with debilitating illnesses remain in their homes and other community settings. It is estimated that 80 percent of all care received by older Americans is provided by family members – spouses, children, grandchildren and other relatives – people just like you.

Taking on the Challenges of Caregiving To help caregivers find the information they need to take care of themselves and their loved ones, the Alliance has partnered with the National Family Caregivers Association to create Family Caregiving 101, an online resource loaded with quality information on how to deal with the challenges of caregiving. You can visit this resource at www.familycaregiving101.org.

The National Alliance for Caregiving has partnered with Lotsa Helping Hands to expand resources available to family caregivers. Through the National Alliance for Caregiving’s Lotsa Helping Hands website, visitors may create their own caregiving site to coordinate support needed for the caregiver and care recipient. Lotsa Helping Hands is a free caregiving coordination web service that provides a private, group calendar where tasks for which a caregiver needs assistance can be posted. Family and friends may visit the site and sign up online for a task. The website generates a summary report showing who has volunteered for which tasks and which tasks remain unassigned. The site tracks each task and notification and reminder emails are sent to the appropriate parties.

To sign up for a free Lotsa Helping Hands account or to learn more, please visit the National Alliance for Caregiving’s Lotsa Helping Hands website.

For Family Caregiver Advocates There is a new resource for those working with or advocating for family caregivers: The Surgeon General's Prescription for Caregivers. You can print it out and distribute as many as you like. Johnson & Johnson created the "Prescription," but it is unbranded, and they are encouraging doctors and other health care professionals, administrators of support groups and other caregiver programs--anyone working with caregivers--to use it.

More Resources We also encourage you to take a look at the booklets the Alliance has created for caregivers in the publications section of this site. And we are also proud to bring you the Family Care Resource Connection, where you can find reviews and ratings on over 1,000 books, videos, Web sites, and other materials on caregiving.