Providing support and care to seriously ill loved ones comes with myriad difficulties for today’s family caregivers. A new documentary film, “Caregiving,” depicts the most pressing issues among these unpaid caregivers, as well as the historic and novel efforts to address them.

“Caregiving” is set to air on local Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations nationwide on June 24, 2025, as well as on the PBS YouTube Channel. The two-hour documentary will also stream on PBS.org and the PBS app beginning May 27, 2025.

The documentary is centered around the daily challenges and triumphs of family caregivers told through personal stories. The film also interweaves the broader context of current cultural and economic conditions leading to a systematic nationwide caregiving crisis, said Chris Durrance, director and senior producer of “Caregiving.” Greater public awareness is needed around the difficult journey that caregivers face, Durrance stated, who is also producer at Ark Media.

“Family caregiving is the greatest untold story in the health care space,” Durrance told Palliative Care News. “They’re largely invisible in discourse. The people who are generally not seen by the wider world are caregivers. They’re largely going without support, without any awareness of what they’re bringing to the family member, to a loved one’s well-being. We’re trying to shine a light on that work.”

Addressing mounting challenges

The “Caregiving” film features actors Bradley Cooper, also an executive producer, and Uzo Aduba as its narrator. Both actors have experienced the challenges of family caregiving.

“Caregiving” is a collaborative project borne from Cooper’s production company Lea Pictures and from the PBS station WETA in Washington, D.C., in association with Ark Media. The documentary is part of WETA’s health, fitness and wellness series, Well Beings.

Many family caregivers are not prepared to step into these roles and need greater support, according to Cooper. Cooper is a founder of the One Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization with a mission to ease cancer patient and caregiver burden.

“Like most people, I didn’t even think about caregiving until my father was diagnosed with cancer,” Cooper said in a Well Beings “Caregiving” film trailer shared with Palliative Care News. “My dad was somebody who I idolized, I used to dress up like him when I was a kid. To go from that to giving him a bath is quite a traumatic thing. It really is up to us. All of us can help to raise the banner for caregivers.”

The film has two purposes, Durrance stated. One aim is to raise awareness about the complicated caregiving world that families get thrust into. An additional goal is to also explain how caregiving issues have evolved and built up over time, he said.

Caregiving can come with intense pressures even for families who have vast financial, practical and psychosocial resources, Durrance said. The new film is in part intended to increase national recognition around the “enormous caregiving obstacles” that have deeply rooted histories, he indicated.

The “Caregiving” film highlights the various historic events that have impacted the current state of caregiving in the United States. Woven into the documentary are the effects of the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War and the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, among other key moments.

Systematic changes needed

The “Caregiving” project also includes 18 short films, which debuted in October 2024 and are available at wellbeings.org and the Well Beings YouTube Channel. The films examine caregiving experiences, programs and perspectives at individual, family and community levels.

“So many caregivers feel alone. I hope people appreciate the scale of this work … and then ask about how they can help [and] take initiative to extend someone a helping hand,” Durrance said. “There’s not a lot of national conversation about where we are and the support we have. You’re in it and just trying to navigate a complex system, whether it’s dealing with Medicare or Medicaid, or your health insurance, or knowing what nonprofits in your area might be able to provide, how friends and neighbors and family members can support you. This almost constant hustle to provide the best care.”

An estimated 53 to 105 million people are family caregivers in the United States, according to a report from National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. Of these, only 5 million are paid caregivers, many of whom are also caring for their own families. 

About 45% of family caregivers have experienced at least one financial impact, while 61% have experienced challenges at work, the report found. Additional, caregiving has negatively impacted health conditions among nearly a quarter (24%) of Americans.

Common challenges include difficulty coordinating care and caring for multiple people simultaneously, according to the report.

Supporting a medically fragile loved one involves a significant amount of health care decision making, documentation and medical and nonmedical management, said Matt Cauli, a family caregiver featured in the film. Cauli is a content creator, consultant and caregiving advocate. Greater education and resources would go a long way to improving caregiving and patient outcomes, he stated.

“There needs to be an incentive program for the caregiver to help their patient,” Cauli told Palliative Care News. “There’s another whole issue with caregivers financially that you’re just done pretty much. Mentally, caregivers are struggling on the inside and not showing it on the outside, which links to not having enough support. Nobody’s prepared for it. It’s just so surprising, because most people will be a caregiver [and] find themselves in this role.”

Many caregivers lack insight into the community resources available to them, according to Durrance. It can be stressful and time-consuming to navigate the complicated patchwork of caregiving support that exists on local and federal levels, he indicated.

The needle may be moving toward improvement. Congressional lawmakers on March 11 introduced the Credit for Caring Act. If enacted, the bipartisan legislation would create a $5,000 tax credit to eligible family caregiving to help offset specific caregiving-related expenses such as adult day services, home care aide assistance, home modifications and respite care.

Caregiving burnout is a large threat to the nation on multiple levels as demand rises, according to Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, director of Caring Across Generations and co-founder of the advocacy organization Supermajority.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, what you do, where you come from — you will need care,” Poo said in the “Caregiving” film trailer. “We have this invisible army who are essentially holding us all up as families and therefore holding the entire economy up. People are doing everything they can and more, and it’s simply not sufficient because we need to have a recognition that care is a public good. There’s just this simmering crisis [of] everyone burning out … everyone is under extreme duress.”