At Borrow My Glasses, We Use Both Terms

We respect the nuance behind care partner. We see great value in recognizing care recipients’ strengths, humanity, complexity and contributions. After all, even if someone needs help in one area of life, they can ably contribute in other areas. None of us is fully self-sufficient on any given day or all seasons of life. “Care partner” signifies a two-way exchange and destigmatizes being on the receiving end at times. Some who prefer care partner earlier on in a disease course say that as more and more care is needed over time, the two-way street becomes increasingly one-way, and the term caregiver can seem to fit better.

We at BMG also use the terms caregiver and caregiving a lot, and often interchangeably. Caregiver/caregiving have been in use for decades, in descriptive not derogatory ways. These terms are more searchable. They will lead you to more resources, research and support. For instance, Googling caregiver resources + my zip code yielded 39,400 results, whereas searching “care partner” + my zip code yielded 6,290 results and a Google message saying, “It looks like there aren’t many great matches for your search.”