Caregiver smiling and assisting an older woman on a walk through the park.

A caregiver is a person who attends to the needs of and provides assistance to someone else who is not fully independent, such as an infant or an individual with an illness, disability, or disorder. A person who does the majority of the work is called the primary caregiver. In health care, any individual involved in the process of identifying, preventing, or treating an illness or disability.

Adapted from the APA Dictionary of Psychology

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