Family caregivers face growing challenges.

By Christina Lee Knauss

Johnny Belissary recently met a woman trying to care for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The man had recently started waking at midnight and walking to the kitchen, where he'd pull every dish out of the cabinets and then repeat the process multiple times. His wife, in her 80s, had not had a good night's sleep in weeks.

Her difficult situation led her to seek help from New Generations Adult Day Care Center, where Belissary serves as administrator. New Generations has facilities in Florence and Marion and plans to expand to Greenville this year, said Belissary, who also works with the S.C. Institute of Medicine and Public Health on issues involving long-term care.

The 80-year-old woman struggling to help her husband is just one of thousands of S.C. residents serving as family caregivers.

According to statistics compiled by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, about 43.5 million caregivers nationwide provided unpaid care to children or adults in the past year. That adds up to an estimated 37 billion hours of care, including 34.2 million for an adult 50 or older.

The S.C. Department on Aging estimates that there are more than 770,000 caregivers in South Carolina, with that number likely to grow as the population ages and more people move to the state, particularly those close to or at retirement age.

The S.C. numbers reflect a nationwide trend. Data from the 2016 U.S. Census showed that in 2035, the number of people age 65 and older will outnumber those 18 and younger for the first time in U.S. history, with older adults making up 23.5% of the population to 19.8%.

"If you're asking if we're at the tip of the spear or if we're behind the curve, I think, depending upon the issue, we are at different points of the continuum," said Dale Watson, director of S.C.'s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. "We understand that our population is graying, and we understand that they will require resources. That's why we make a continuous effort to make legislators aware, because it will require resourcing, but we also make the community aware so that they can begin to plan locally on the things they need to do to address these concerns."

Experts say people take on the challenge of caregiving for many reasons financial necessity, love, or a desire to help loved ones avoid having to enter a nursing home. Being able to stay at home, or "age in place," can be a comfort and a benefit to a senior adult because they...