Caregiving

Washington's "Caring for Caregivers" video podcast series features discussions with local experts, community leaders, and caregivers just like you on a range of topics to help you along your caregiving journey.

Latest AARP research attaches $16.8 billion value to the estimated 770 million hours of unpaid care that family caregivers provided in 2021.

Are you, or a family member, living with memory loss or dementia? Do you work with people living with dementia?

The financial and emotional challenges of caring for a spouse wear on Sammamish resident Michael O’Connell. As the sole caregiver for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s, he wonders if their savings will last through her illness. They did all the right things you would expect of a solidly middle-class family, planning carefully for retirement, but he is facing a situation where their savings may not last. And, with a family history of Parkinson’s disease, he worries about how he will be fair if something happens to him. “It keeps me up night and day,” says Michael.

By Cathy MacCaul, AARP Washington Advocacy Director

The pandemic has taken an extremely heavy toll on residents of nursing homes and other long term care facilities. This period of prolonged isolation has caused declines in physical, cognitive, and emotional health. There is an antidote!

The 2022 legislative session led to a significant win for Washingtonians nearing retirement. More than a million near retirees are now eligible for benefits under the WA Cares Program.

Do you have a family member living in a Memory Care setting?

The COVID pandemic continues to wreak havoc on our lives, economy, friends, and families. No one was hit harder than residents of long-term care -- nearly 80,000 Washingtonians who live in more than 4,300 long-term care homes across the state.

In just over a year, more than 2,600 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in Washington state have died of COVID-19. While the ongoing vaccination rollout offers hope, we must seek improvements to care. Chronic problems that plagued nursing homes pre-pandemic—like infection control and understaffing—remain and may have worsened.