'The best long-term care insurance is a conscientious daughter': Women bear the burden of looking after dementia-suffering relatives, study finds

  • Daughters are the most likely carers, with 28% offering more support than sons 
  • Women make up two-thirds of unpaid family-member carers in dementia
  • Pressures are expected to increase as more women work and dementia rises 
  • To overcome these pressures, men may have to act as carers more in the future

By DAISY DUNNE FOR MAILONLINE

Published: | Updated:

Women disproportionately bear the burden of care for their dementia-suffering relatives, a new study has found.

Daughters are the most likely to provide care, with 28 per cent offering more support than sons.

'The best long-term care insurance in our country is a conscientious daughter,' the researchers said in a paper.

Most dementia care - 83 per cent - is provided by unpaid family members, two-thirds of whom are women, they added. 

This burden is expected to grow as an increasing number of women are working and dementia cases are rising thanks to an older life expectancy.

Daughters are the most likely to care for elderly family members, according to a new study

Daughters are the most likely to care for elderly family members, according to a new study

JUST ONE CUP OF TEA A DAY LOWERS DEMENTIA RISK

Drinking a cup of tea each day may substantially lower your risk of dementia, research released in March suggests.

Consuming the popular beverage reduces the chances of getting the debilitating disease by 50 per cent, scientists found.

While those carrying the 'dementia gene' can slash their likelihood of developing toxic clumps in their brain by as much as 86 per cent.  

Full of compounds such as catechins and theaflavins, tea leaves are considered to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits.

These may help to protect the brain from vascular damage and neurodegeneration, according to study author Dr Feng Lei, of the National University of Singapore. 

He said: 'The data from our study suggests that a simple and inexpensive lifestyle measure such as daily tea drinking can reduce a person's risk of developing neurocognitive disorders in late life.

'Our findings have important implications for dementia prevention.' 

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In the US, more than 80 per cent of dementia sufferers are cared for by a family member, the research adds. In the UK the figure is around 61 per cent, according to the Alzheimer's Society. 

Care-givers spend an average of 171 hours a month looking after a family member, the study found.

The time required combined with the unpredictability of a carer's demands, such as toileting and bathing, can be overwhelming, the researchers said.

Dementia cases are also expected to surge and will affect an estimated 8.4 million Americans by 2030.

As a result of these increasing pressures, men are expected to become more involved in the caring role in the future. 

'The best long-term care insurance in our country is a conscientious daughter,' the researchers said.

'Wives are more likely to care for husbands than vice versa, and daughters are 28 percent more likely to care for a parent than sons,' they added. 

The research was published in the journal JAMA Neurology. 

Although conducted in the US, there is nothing to suggest that the findings do not also apply elsewhere.  

The study did not uncover why women are more likely to care for their relatives than men.  

Yet, research from 2013 that was also conducted by Stanford University found that women may appear to be more caring because the sexes express their love for family members in different ways.

Study author Emma Seppala, said: 'While women's expression may have become one of nurturing and bonding, men's compassion was expressed through protecting and ensuring survival.

'Compassion just took on a different 'look and feel' depending on our evolutionary needs for survival.

'One reason we might think that women are more compassionate than men is that we think of compassion in only one way: nurturance, kindness, softness, gentleness, and emotional warmth. 

'We think of compassion in mostly feminised terms. 

'It may be that, in women, we are conditioned to think of compassion as involving caring and nurturing but that, in men, it takes on a fiercer more protective appearance.'

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