What people might not realize about staying at home, Locker said, is that neighbors will start to move away. “So you don’t know the neighborhood anymore. The neighbor who would run across the street to help you if you fall is not there anymore.”
Forty-nine percent of the caregivers in the study said they have communicated their own funeral preferences versus 41% of non-caregivers; and more than half (51%) have identified their place of burial or cremation versus 38%.
Despite these preparations, the report showed one-third (30%) of boomer caregivers still have had to tap into their retirement savings to pay for health-care expenses, compared with 19% of non-caregivers.
Not surprisingly, women overwhelmingly lead the way as caregivers, at 62% versus 38% of men. Caregivers, the report noted, are most often between the ages of 54 and 72.