Family and Carer

The word carer means someone who looks after a friend, family member or even a neighbour who needs support because of their sickness, age or disability. This doesnt mean a proffesional care work or someoneone employed. The average age to become a carer is age 50-59 with 68% of them caring upto 19 hours a week unpaid. Over 585 of carers are women. Within this essay my aim is to describe the difficulties and rewards of being a carer for a family member, I will be using the case study of Ann Walker and the Hussein et al for Illustration.
When caring for a family member, there will be some difficulties you may come across. These difficulties may include: Hard work, caring for a family member is very hard work you have to always be there for the person, helping them and fulfilling their needs. For e g Ann has to be always lifting her father Angus onto the toilet and manoeuvring him up and down the stairs. She also does all the cooking and the cleaning. It is a very demanding job; you have to deal with all of their requests, for e g Angus tries to order Ann about and becomes impatient when his needs are not met immediately. When caring for a family member you may not be able to do the things you used to do. A lot of carers have financial difficulties especially when there is no support in place, you may have to give up your studies or going to work, for e.g. Ann had to give up her career to care for Angus. At times you may feel you have no time for yourself and you become stressed, and you may take this out on the person you are caring for. You may feel you spend all of your time with your family member and you may start to feel isolated,e.g. Ann spends a lot of time with Angus and does not get out much. Caring for a family member can be emotionally demanding, they may expect too much from you and you may feel sometimes that they do not appreciate how much you do for them, for e g; sometimes Angus does not realise Ann may have needs of her own and that Bob and Zoe