Caregiving May Lengthen Life
By Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) — Much has been reported about the stress and burden of caregiving, but a new study suggests there may be a flip side to taking care of someone you love as they age — a decreased risk of death.
“We found that caregivers who spent an average of 14 or more hours a week caregiving lived longer and reduced their risk of dying by about half,” said study author Stephanie Brown, an assistant professor in internal medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She added that even after they controlled the data to account for things such as age or previous illness, “there was about a 36 percent reduced risk of dying in the seven-year time period.”
Results of the study were published in the current issue of Psychological Science.
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