So, it comes as a surpise to find a cluster of new studies that seem to conclude caregiving is good for you. That’s right, instead of wearing you down, making you demented or depressed, good for you!

And, the good it does you is more than just the psychological kind. We’re talking benefits in strength, longevity, brainpower and more.

As it turns out, the author of the studies, Lisa Fredman, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University, was just as surprised when the results first started to come in: “It was a shocker,” she says, adding, “My first thought was, ‘This can’t be right!’ Like many before me, I subscribed to the idea that caregiving is bad for your health. But over time I kept finding essentially the same patterns.”

Fredman’s first study, conducted over eight years, showed that caregivers had lower mortality rates than non-caregivers. The next one focused on physical ability, and found that high-intensity caregivers demonstrated better walking pace, grip strength and speed of rising from a chair than lower intensity caregivers or non-caregivers. A third study was on memory and brain function. Once again, the caregivers performed well, demonstrating brain skills equivalent to those of people ten years younger.

Following is a conversation I had with Fredman about her work and its implications:

Q: You’ve said you were surprised by the results of your research. What was your original hypothesis going into this work?

A: My hypothesis was that caregivers were going to have poorer health outcomes then noncaregivers. And that remained my hypothesis for the first three grants that I wrote over eight or nine years. So I was pretty wedded to that.

Q: What changed your mind?

A: My initial results were that caregivers had lower rates of mortality than the noncaregivers. While they were much more stressed than the noncaregivers, they seemed to be doing better physically. The differences were dramatic. Mortality rates were 25 percent lower for caregivers. Functional decline such as walking speed, grip strength and chair-stand speed was lower for caregivers. Caregivers also maintained higher cognitive ability.

Q: What did the caregivers experience that might have contributed to these positive effects?

A: The physical activity probably has salutary effects. And there are psychological benefits as well. A lot of caregivers report they feel a great deal of gratification that they are able to care for their relatives and keep them out of a long term care facility.

Q: So, why do you think other studies have found such different outcomes?

A: Well, there is a key difference. We used an independent measure of stress, which previous studies had neglected to do. And so we are able to separate out the health effects of stress from the health effects of caregiving. We found that it is primarily the stressed caregivers who are experiencing negative health effects. So now I actually really believe in this hypothesis.

Q: What about the question of selection bias? Obviously you weren’t able to assign some individuals to caregiving roles and then assign others to be free of this responsibility and then compare the two groups. You had to pick those who had chosen to be caregivers and compare them to those who had chosen not to. Does that muddle the data at all?

A: I don’t think it’s a question of whether you have a choice. If you are healthy enough to take care of an older relative who needs assistance you become the caregiver. I wouldn’t consider it a selection bias, but there is a selection of healthier older people assuming the caregiving role.

Q: What about the political risk—or repercussion—of studies showing that caregiving may be healthy? To put it bluntly, is there a chance policy-makers will read too much into this and, say use your results to defund agencies that are helping the caregiver?

A: That is always our concern globally. The message here is that caregiving can be very stressful and stress can have very deleterious effect, not just on a person’s emotional well-being but their physical health as well. And what our studies seem to show is that it is really stress—not being a caregiver—which does a person harm. If anything, my studies support the call to fund more research.

Q: Stress is something that you can reduce by intentional effort. Based on your studies, would you tell someone who is a caregiver to more actively pursue stress-relieving activities?

A: I’m very interested in the effects that stress-relieving activities such as yoga have on caregivers and people in general. I’m excited that we now have the ability to look at physiological and brain effects of these stress reduction programs. Caregivers should try to find ways that work for them to reduce stress such as support groups, talking with a friend, yoga, swimming, running, reading etc. But it is not always realistic to simply advise a caregiver to pursue something like this.

Q: Why not?

A: Caregivers often have trouble finding free time. It can be very difficult for people in this role to stop and concentrate on themselves because they are often fully consumed with the wellbeing of the person that they are caring for.

Q: So how can caregivers find personal time to lower their own stress?

A: It really is important for others to offer respite to caregivers by taking on some of their responsibilities. For example, my sister is the main caregiver for my father. When I pitch in, I seem to spend the entire day doing errands—errands that can seem minor and not very helpful. But my sister assures me that it really helps her because it saves her a substantial amount of time. So it’s exactly those kinds of things—things that don’t seem like such a big deal—but really are, because they give the caregiver the gift of some free time.

(Steven Slon is editorial director for The Saturday Evening Post. This column was first published by Beclose.com)

Is Caregiving Good for You? The Saturday Evening Post

Imagine having a robot around the house that can lift a frail elder if they fall when you are not around. Now visualize automated dresser drawers that can literally talk and guide a dementia patient through the complex—and often stressful—act of getting dressed in the morning. You are seeing what could very well be the future of caregiving.

Diane F. Mahoney, PhD, Professor of Geriatric Nursing Research at MGH Institute and her team were among the first to study wireless monitoring technologies for caregiving. Frustrated with so-called “alert” bracelets  that patients frequently fail to activate, she became interested in high-tech devices that not only monitor patients in the home, but can provide an assist to the harried caregiver. Mahoney’s research is at the bleeding edge of caregiving technology. I spoke with her recently to find out what’s coming next.

Q: Robots in the home? What sparked this concept?

A: I got the idea when I heard that people are falling and not getting up, and they are not pushing the alert button on their alert bracelet or calling for an ambulance. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we had some kind of personal lifting device for elders?

Q: Is it feasible?

A: The concept already exists. The military has some neat robotic devices that they use to go into the battlefield and lift downed soldiers and remove them under fire. So I wound up getting involved as a consultant to a couple of robotic companies that are indeed working on devices that can move and lift a person. I am helping companies to develop a product for in-home use, for a future version when the technology becomes affordable.

Q: So, robots in the house? I guess, to appeal to baby boomers, you just put a BMW label on the thing.

A: [Laughs] Right!  I’m a baby-boomer and, I’ll tell you, 20 years from now, I’d like a little robot running around the house.

Q: Yes definitely, me too. So, will we start seeing robots soon?

A: iRobot already has the Roomba, a robotic vacuum device, and they are very entrepreneurial. There are also other companies around that are working on components of robotics for in-home use. So in the near future they could merge together, combine developments, and solve potential safety issues. I’m sure these companies will be able to overcome the technology challenges in the next decade. And wouldn’t that just be great?

Q: A lot of your work has focused not just on the patient, but on the caregiver’s need for respite, for just a small break during their 24-hour workday. Can you tell us a little about that?

A: After years spent listening to Alzheimer’s caregivers talk about their needs, one of the themes that kept coming up was, “if only I had 10 minutes to myself, if I could just breathe or go to the restroom without my husband or wife banging on the door!” So I designed an automated telephone call; I called it a respite call. To make it effective, we interviewed the caregiver for their patient’s favorite hobbies, foods, smells, songs, and so forth. The phone call was all computerized, and the caregiver could call in anytime and put their patient on the phone—even at two in the morning when they were being driven crazy. And by calling in and putting in the password the conversation would come up and the voice on the phone would say, “Oh, hello Harry. Oh, it’s so nice to talk with you now. You know, I understand you really like brownies…” And of course, for someone else, it could be chocolate candy.

Q: Would this keep them busy for the magic 10 minutes?

A: Actually I designed it to be 28 minutes long and it was able to repeat once. So we put it out there; I had no idea if this would work or not. Many people don’t let their person with dementia use the phone anymore. But others tried it and it gave people more than their 10-minute break. They got a 28-minute break. Some of them went around twice, for a total of 56 minutes.

Q: I bet caregivers were pleased with that.

A: Yes. One caregiver said to me, “The day is very long. And I need a tool box. And in my tool box I need a whole bunch of things to keep him occupied. This is a very important tool in the box.”

Q: What other tools have you developed?

A: I’m starting another project with a colleague who has been using motion sensor technology for children with autism. We just got funded a few months ago by the Alzheimer’s Association to build what I call DRESS – Development of a Responsive Emotive Sensing System—to help people with dementia get to a state of rest. The project grew out of our observation that, for people with dementia, getting dressed is often a trigger activity for becoming extremely upset. The person gets in the drawer and rummages and gets stuck and keeps on rummaging.

Q: What is the solution?

A: For the prototype we are going to put iPhones on each drawer. So if they get stuck in one drawer too long, the iPhone on the next drawer they should go to will turn green and flash, and if they open it, fine. If they don’t open it, the phone will speak, and actually say “Open this next.” It will continue with verbal cues until they perform the requested activity.

Q: This is not just to help them get dressed, right? Again, this is partly about caregiver respite.

A: Yes, even if we can’t get them fully dressed, the caregiver can use this as a safe activity. We might be able to convert what would have been an annoyance into a distracting respite activity for 20 or 30 minutes. Worst case, the caregiver gets a break; best case, the person actually gets dressed alone.

Q:  Either way, sounds like a victory.

A: Certainly! The respite part is central. Caregivers themselves are often so focused on their loved ones that they often don’t take the time to take care of themselves. I’m in this field because I really appreciate the role caregivers play. They make such a vital contribution that sometimes I don’t think our society fully appreciates.

Steve Slon is the editorial director for The Saturday Evening Post. This article was originally published by Beclose.com

“Help, Robot! I’ve fallen and I Need You to Pick Me Up” The Saturday Evening Post