2014 AARP Caregiving Survey Louisiana Registered Voters Age 45 and Older

Louisianans want to live independently at home for as long as possible with the help of family caregivers. They strongly support having community services that will enable people to remain in their own homes as they age. Furthermore, they have strong support for services and proposals that will ease the strain of providing care.

Key findings include:

• The vast majority of Louisiana registered voters age 45 and older says it is important to have services that allow people to stay in their own home as they age (90%) and more resources and training for family caregivers (75%).
  
• When it comes to providing help to care for seniors, the state of Louisiana spends 63% of its Medicaid budget on institutional care, like nursing homes, and 37% on services to help seniors in their homes and communities.
  
• A large majority of Louisiana registered voters age 45 and older strongly supports proposals that would help family caregivers when their loved ones go into hospitals:
  
  • Nearly all support requiring hospitals or care facilities to explain and demonstrate medical tasks family caregivers will need to perform after the patient returns home (92%).
    v Over half (53%) of Louisiana registered voters age 45 and older are currently providing or have provided unpaid care to an adult loved one who is ill, frail, elderly or has a physical or mental disability.
    
  • More than four in five of these caregivers are helping or have helped with shopping (88%), household chores (85%), or preparing meals (84%).
    
  • At least seven in ten are helping or have helped with more complex tasks like medication management (73%) and other nursing and medical tasks (71%).
    
• About two-thirds of Louisiana registered voter working caregivers age 45+ have had to use their own money or modify their work schedules in order to provide care for an adult loved one.
  
• A majority of Louisiana registered voters age 45 and older strongly supports proposals that would protect family caregivers in the workplace:
  
• Most support ensuring that employers cannot fire an employee for taking time off for family caregiving purposes (81%).
  

The 2014 AARP Survey of Louisiana Registered Voters Age 45+ on Caregiving was conducted through telephone interviews with a sample of 1000 respondents ages 45 and older drawn from an age targeted voter list sample based on the census division information from the state of Louisiana. The interviews were conducted in English by Precision Opinion, Inc. from September 26th through October 4th 2014. The results from the study were weighted by age and gender. For more information, contact Aisha Bonner at ABonner@aarp.org.