This brief provides approaches to help family caregivers understand the role of caregiving, its challenges and consequences. Using real life case examples, it illustrates the essentials of family caregiving. The caregiving role can be a source of caregiver stress and can become increasingly burdensome. People are now living longer and acquiring chronic diseases, which makes it necessary to involve caregivers to assist in disability care for longer periods of time, and live out their end-time at home, which means caregivers are more and more needed, especially at the end-of-life.

This brief illustrates the role and scope of caregiving and its future growth. It is useful to physicians, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, nurses, public health, public policy and families and has a broad appeal for use in courses on Death and Dying.