Caring for aging parents takes a toll on workers

Companies, lawmakers try to address problem facing many Americans

BY MARSHA KING
Seattle Times

SEATTLE: Renee Simpkins never thought her biggest worry at work would turn out to be caring for her mother.

But since last summer, she has tried frantically to juggle her full-time job as a program administrator with Boeing Inc. with helping her sister take care of their 78-year-old mother, who has suffered from stomach problems and cancer, emphysema and a life-threatening bout of flu.

Simpkins has used all her sick leave and four of her five weeks of vacation. She occasionally has to leave work early and make up the time at odd hours. While on the job, she makes phone calls checking on her mother's care. During Christmas vacation, instead of taking time to recharge, she drove three hours round trip every day to visit her mom in a hospital in Bremerton.

``There've been a lot of days over the last several months when it's taken every bit of effort I have to get out of bed and come to work,'' says Simpkins, who lives in Kent, a southern suburb of Seattle.

Welcome to the most pressing workplace and family issue since child care.

In the next decade, the National Alliance of Caregiving estimates, 11 million to 15.6 million people -- or about one in every 10 workers -- will need to provide informal, unpaid care for their aging parents or other elderly loved ones while holding a job.

Experts say many of those workers will endure serious financial setbacks and stress-related health problems as a result.

Businesses also face losses estimated at $11.4 billion to $29 billion annually from absenteeism, work interruptions and replacing employees who quit to care for an older adult, according to a 1997 study conducted for the MetLife insurance company by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the National Center on Women and Aging at Brandeis University.

And the need for relatives to provide elder care is expected to grow as baby boomers age.

``People are living longer with chronic illness. Instead of dropping dead at 65 with a heart attack, they're living to 90 with arthritis and chronic diabetes,'' says Gail Hunt, executive director of the National Alliance for Caregiving.

Congress is considering several bills to support caregivers. Some of the more popular ideas would provide tax incentives encouraging people to buy insurance for long-term care and encouraging corporations to offer long-term-care insurance to employees.

A few government agencies and most Fortune 500 companies have begun offering elder-care benefits, occasionally at union insistence, along with child care, health insurance and a 401(k).

Simpkins works for one of those companies. Boeing offers special elder-care services that have helped her, including counseling, research on long-term-care options and financial advice.

Her boss understands. ``If she needs 10 minutes to cry in my office, that's OK,'' says Becky Evans, head of employee services.

``Through all of the budget cuts we've been through, we've learned that this is an essential piece of our business,'' Evans says. Support for employees providing elder care ``keeps them productive, satisfied and happy. It helps in our recruiting efforts, in our turnover and with morale.''

Aging population

More than 22.4 million households -- nearly one in four -- have a member caring for someone age 50 or older, according to studies done by the National Alliance of Caregivers and AARP.

And nearly two-thirds of Americans under age 60 think they will be responsible for elder care in the next 10 years, according to a 1998 poll conducted for the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Care needs run the gamut: quick drop-in social calls, visits to the grocery or pharmacy, transportation to the doctor, managing a loved one's legal affairs. Sometimes more personal tasks are required, such as feeding, bathing and diapering.

Caregivers may get up extra early to get Mom to adult day care or to visit her in a nursing home. They may come in late to work and use work time to take care of their loved ones' financial or medical business on the phone. And taking care of a parent long-distance is even more complex.

Akron social worker Connie Letta runs a support group for caregivers of aging relatives at Family Services of Summit County. In the past seven years, Letta, a geriatric specialist, has heard a lot of stories from workers trying to combine caregiving and jobs.

``Sometimes, it's harder to take care of your elderly loved one than it was to take care of your young children,'' she said. That's because frail seniors often require many kinds of help. They also can be cognitively impaired, or emotionally fragile because of many losses, Letta said.

Describing her typical support group member, Letta said: ``Generally, it's a middle-aged woman. She may have children in college, or one or two children still at home. She has all these issues to deal with -- the regular family issues, and day-to-day survival, and she's going to work.''

When the parent suffers a catastrophe -- a fall or a heart attack -- the middle-aged worker often isn't prepared, Letta said. ``I've had (group members) who have received warnings about all the work they've missed,'' she said. ``I've had people who have had to quit their jobs, and have suffered financially.''

The study for MetLife found that caregivers often underestimate the extent of the obligation and how it will affect their work. Some cut back hours, take unpaid leave, miss out on skills training or promotions, or retire early.

Workers who manage to juggle caregiving and jobs find that something else suffers -- usually their personal life, Letta said.

Help is still limited

Elder-care benefits still are the exception rather than the rule. For example, only 23 percent of companies with 100 employees or more offer basic resource and referral services on elder care, according to a 1998 study by the Families and Work Institute.

Most commonly, a business will contract with a ``work-life benefits'' vendor to provide information and referrals to help employees sort through options such as home health care, assisted living and nursing homes. Some companies also offer flexible work hours and the ability to use paid sick leave to take care of a parent.

Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages, recently became one of the first corporations in the country to hire an elder-care case manager on site. The case manager helps employees figure out how to take care of their aging parents and to plan for how they'll take care of themselves in old age.

The Washington, D.C., company also has started offering a range of fee-based services through a vendor -- including checkbook management, lawn care, housekeeping and transportation -- to help an employee's frail parent or loved one live independently. Employees can check on a relative's progress and services via a computerized reporting system -- even if the relative is in another state.

Saving time

Boeing contracts with Working Solutions, a Portland, Ore., firm that offers a range of services. About 10 percent of Boeing's 130,000 workers nationwide use the service every year. On surveys, the employees say it saves them more than 15 hours of time away from work each year.

Working Solutions helped Simpkins and her sister cut down on research time to find the best living options for their mother. The sisters have decided to conserve their mother's money and keep caring for her at home, though they worry about what's to come.

It helps Simpkins to know she could call Working Solutions and say, ``I don't think I can do this anymore.''

In that event, the company would help Simpkins and her sister find an alternative.

Beacon Journal medical writer Katherine Spitz contributed to this report.