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Caregivers take on unseen, exhausting, thankless work. Here are some of their stories

Connecticut Public Radio | By Sujata Srinivasan,

Published June 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT

Updated July 18, 2025 at 11:55 AM EDT

Cookie Jones quit her job to provide care to her aged mother with Alzheimer's disease. She is one of thousands of unpaid family caregivers in Connecticut and navigating financial and access barriers to treatment. June 4, 2025.

More than 100 million people across the United States are caregivers to a family member, and the value of their unpaid labor is estimated at over $600 billion a year, according to the new PBS documentary “Caregiving.”

For caregivers who are paid, the labor can be thankless, with long hours and little pay.

From interviews with nursing home workers, to a profile of a daughter devoted to her ailing mother, Connecticut Public's Senior Health Reporter Sujata Srinivasan and visuals journalist Tyler Russell explore what caregiving means today and how society values, and often ignores, the work.

In Bridgeport, a daughter balances love, and burnout, as she cares for her ailing mother

Every day, I get her up, I take her into the bathroom, and I put her on the toilet and I clean her. Some days I let her brush her teeth. I put the toothpaste on there, and I stand in there, and I just let her, because I don't want to take everything from her.

Cookie Jones, 60, at home with her 87-year-old mother, Valerie.

CT nursing home workers reflect on emotional toll of job

Natasha Forrester’s two year old daughter clung to her mom, making the most of a rare day at home together. Forrester is among nursing home workers across the state who continues to struggle with poor pay and high job stress.

I've been kicked, punched, pinched, spit at. I've had feces thrown at me ... then they roll over and say, ‘OK, bye,” just like nothing happened.

Natasha Forester, 34, a licensed practical nurse (LPN) who works with dementia patients

New PBS documentary profiles often invisible work of caregivers in America

“Like most people, I didn't even think about caregiving until my father was diagnosed with cancer,” actor and executive producer Bradley Cooper says in the documentary.

My dad was somebody who I idolized. I used to dress up like him when I was a kid in kindergarten and get made fun of because I wanted to wear like a suit and a tie ... to go from that to giving him a bath is quite a traumatic thing.

Bradley Cooper, actor and executive producer of "Caregiving," a new PBS film

'Your Name Means Dream' at TheaterWorks Hartford provides futuristic glimpse into world of AI caregiving

We all know folks who have become senile, or have strokes. And people who come to the theater for this play generally have had something in their lives that resonates with the play.

José Rivera, 70, writer and director, "Your Name Means Dream"

Art and memory 'collide' at Mattatuck Museum’s Alzheimer's therapy program

Michael Quirk (right) and his wife and caregiver Patty (left) work on collages as part of an art therapy program for people with early-stage Alzheimer's and their caregivers at The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury on July 16, 2025.

At first, I thought he's just way too young to have something like this. So that was tough. It was tough to say, ‘well, you know, things aren't going to be quite the way we thought they would be for our future.'

Patty Quirk, 64, recalling her husband Mike, and his Alzheimer's diagnosis about a year ago.