For quick facts on end-of-life planning, go to Second Opinion, End of Life (Episode 313)

The following statistics are from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services:

• 52 million Americans (31 percent of the adult population age 20 to 75) provide informal care to a family member or friend who is ill or disabled.  About 37 million provide help to family members and about 15 million provide help to friends.  
  
• 8 percent of these caregivers reported providing help over the last year to more than one care recipient.
  
• 38 percent of informal caregiving is provided by children to aging parents.  It is the most common informal caregiving relationship.
  
• 11 percent of informal caregiving is provided by spouses, most often to their elderly wives or husbands.
  
• 7 percent of informal care is provided to significantly disabled children, most often to adult disabled children by middle-aged parents.
  
• About 20 percent of informal care is provided to other relatives such as grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles, and about 24 percent is provided to friends and neighbors.
  
• The average age of all informal caregivers is 43 years old. Spouses caring for their disabled husband or wife are somewhat older, with an average age of 55 years.
  
• Both men and women provide informal care. However, up to age 70, women are more likely to be caregivers and to provide more hours of care, to provide more care over longer periods, and to care for more than one person.  On average, women provide about 50% more hours of informal care per week to their care recipients than their male counterparts.

The following statistics are based on a 2003 RAND Corporation study:

• 20% of the elderly die from a short period of evident decline, such as from cancer, with death occurring usually within a year.
  
• 20% die following several years of increasing physical limitation, such as from coronary artery disease or emphysema. The patient survives a few episodes but then die from an exacerbation rather suddenly.
  
• 40% will die according to a gradual but unrelenting trajectory, with steady decline, enfeeblement, and growing dependency often lasting a decade or longer.
  
• Less than 5% of people over 65 live in nursing homes. About eight out of 10 older men and six out of 10 older women live in family settings, with a spouse or other family members.