Adding In-Home Care Can Help

Having more in-home support services in place could help prevent spousal caregivers from dropping their partners off at the emergency department as a source of respite, a phenomenon known in some medical circles as “pop drop.”

That’s according to a new University of Michigan study in the Aug. 24 edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study looked at Medicare-linked data from the biennial Health and Retirement Study (HRS) between 2000 and 2012 for 3,101 married couples aged 65 and older where one spouse acted as a caregiver for their disabled partner.

Researchers found that spouses who were more fatigued while actively caregiving saw higher health care costs and took their spouses to the emergency department over 23% more than their non-fatigued counterparts over the course of six months.

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