CAREGIVING
Tools
AARP Caregiving Tool Kit
Caregivers can access our extensive toolkit filled with interactive features, such as expert videos, calculators, and worksheets, into a one-stop shop for the information you need to care for the one you love or volunteer to help out a friend.
Get Organized!
Download our information form, which helps you identify where your most important papers are kept. This can save you added stress during an emergency.
Employers Supporting Caregivers
What can employers do to help caregivers? Check out our tips, and forward them to your company's benefits coordinators.
Long-Distance Caregiving
As a long-distance caregiver, you can take these steps to make the job more manageable.
CAPS Locator
Find a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS), an expert who helps caregivers remodel their homes to accommodate loved ones with special needs.
Community Services Programs
Find out about assistance offered on the federal, state, and local levels. Public support includes everything from meal delivery at home to personal-care services for you or your loved one.
Caregivers Stress Test
The value of rest for caregivers is often overlooked. Assess your need for it through our quick stress quiz.
State Average Caregiving Costs
What is the average cost of nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, adult day-care centers, or home health-aide services in your state? Use our long-term care cost calculator to approximate your options.
Know Your Health History
Learn what health information should be immediately available and how to keep a list of medications updated.
A government estimate puts a shortfall at more than one million registered nurses by 2020. How could this hurt your care?
Family Health History a Holiday Must
Holidays and reunions are a perfect opportunity to collect a family health history, says Ivy Anderson, who did just that.
From the Online Community
Journal: Caregiving for my Wife
User budday chronicles the caring for his soulmate, his wife he has known since he was 10.
Read Entry
Journal: Life at the Brown House
User kcmodb shares the joys and realities of giving birth to and raising two girls, one of whom suffered from a birth defect.
Read Entry
The Truth About
Upfront Hospital Fees
Our scam expert tells us how hospitals get away with requiring fees upfront and how you can negotiate a lower bill.
Caring for Your Parents
Get an intimate look at five families struggling to keep parents at home in this PBS documentary "Caring for Your Parents." Watch the show online.
Alzheimer's Caregiving
AARP Radio talks to Sarah Varney, who recounts the struggle of one family to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.
Double Bind: Work and Home
More than 44 million Americans are involved in caring for an aging relative or friend; 29 million of those caregivers hold down jobs. Some caregivers are finding themselves with divided loyalties.
