Sources for this article: This article draws on both Korean and U.S. sources. Each piece of information is labeled in the body with 🇰🇷 Korea or 🇺🇸 U.S. to indicate which country it applies to.
Steadying a parent, lifting them out of bed, supporting their weight on the way to and from the bathroom — caregivers tend to think of these movements, repeated many times a day, as simply part of the job. Yet that sense of routine accumulates, little by little, on the back, the shoulders, and the knees. If one morning it becomes hard to straighten up, or raising a shoulder brings a stab of pain, the body has already been bearing that weight for a long time.
🇺🇸 U.S. Researchers at Ohio State University followed informal family caregivers for four weeks and found that 94% reported musculoskeletal pain in at least one part of the body. The most commonly affected area was the lower back (76%), followed by the knees, shoulders, and wrists, each at 43%. In the same study, 78% said that pain interfered with their ability to provide care, and 66% reported a reduced quality of life. When a caregiver's body hurts, the quality of care suffers alongside it.
🇺🇸 U.S. As of 2025, approximately 63 million adults in the United States provide family care — roughly 1 in 4 adults. Among them, 25% spend 40 or more hours per week on caregiving. Research on musculoskeletal pain has also shown that 93.5% of family caregivers experienced pain somewhere in their body in the preceding four weeks, and 82% experienced pain in two or more locations simultaneously. Lower back pain and neck pain were the most frequently co-occurring complaints; 60.5% of caregivers with lower back pain also reported neck pain.
🇰🇷 Korea According to a survey of care workers released by Gyeonggi Province in 2025, the most common health problem among caregivers who had experienced a work-related illness or accident was musculoskeletal disorders (57.8%). This figure was particularly pronounced among home-based care workers (재가 요양보호사) providing care for older adults. Caregivers with ten or more years of experience were approximately 2.7 times more likely to report a work-related illness than those with fewer than three years, demonstrating that the longer caregiving continues, the greater the burden that accumulates in the body. Studies of Korean family caregivers have also consistently noted that conditions such as herniated lumbar discs and other physical ailments can develop in the course of providing care.
Why are the back and shoulders especially vulnerable? Caregiving tasks such as transfer assistance, bathing, accompanying someone to the toilet, and steadying a person after a fall all require repeated bending, twisting, and load-bearing at the waist. 🇺🇸 U.S. Under guidelines from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the maximum safe lifting load in a typical environment is approximately 35 pounds (about 16 kilograms). Yet transfer assistance at home almost always involves body weights that far exceed this threshold, compounded by confined spaces and unstable postures. Repeatedly performing these movements without professional training is the primary reason stress accumulates in the back and shoulders.
🇺🇸 U.S. Beginning in January 2024, Medicare established separate billing codes (CPT 97550, 97551, 97552) for caregiver training services, making it possible to receive insurance coverage for training in transfer assistance, activities of daily living, and safety techniques. Sessions can be billed as caregiver-only training even when the patient is not present, meaningfully improving access. 🇺🇸 U.S. Organizations such as the Arizona Caregiver Coalition also offer free safe-transfer education programs covering proper body mechanics for transfer assistance and the use of assistive devices.
We encourage caregivers not to put off the body's signals for too long. When pain appears, it is easy to decide it is bearable and move on, or to postpone a check-up. But if a caregiver becomes unable to move freely because of pain, caregiving itself must stop. The place to start is with the basics: keeping the back straight and bending the knees during weight-bearing movements, making a habit of using both hands for support, and using a mobility aid whenever possible. And if pain persists for two weeks or more, please seek medical attention as soon as you can.
Sources: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) Family Caregiving Report (2025); Associated Press reporting (October 2025); Musculoskeletal Key — "The Patient Behind the Patient" (2026); IJERPH — "Musculoskeletal Pain in Family Caregivers" (2023); Frontiers in Pain Research (2025); Gyeonggi Province Survey of Home-Visit Care Workers (경기도가족여성연구원 [Gyeonggi Family and Women's Research Institute], 2025); Korean Health Equity Research — "Changes in the Health Status of Community-Dwelling Older Adults' Family Caregivers During the COVID-19 Pandemic"; APTA Clinical Practice Guidelines — Caregiver Training Codes (2024); NIOSH Safe Lifting Guidelines.
Note: This article was compiled by AI from the sources cited above. We strive for accuracy, but for decisions about your specific situation, please confirm the latest guidance from a professional or the relevant agency.