As people live longer and family sizes shrink, fewer relatives are available to share the burden of caregiving for aging loved ones. The second episode of our two-part miniseries on caregiving explores what this means for the family members who take on this critical role. How do they provide the best care while also maintaining their own well-being? To hear firsthand how caregivers are navigating this challenge, Lauren Young and Tanya Lewis, Scientific American’s respective associate and senior editors of health and medicine, visited a support center in Queens, N.Y. Young shares some of the stories they gathered from the community there.

Listen to part one of this series.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Recommended reading:

Shrinking Family Sizes May Change Our Experience with Aging

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Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was reported and hosted by Lauren Young. Tanya Lewis also contributed reporting for this miniseries. Marielle Issa, Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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