Nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults act as caregivers for loved one

Nearly 40 percent of American adults care for someone with serious health issues, a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows.

Four in 10 adults care for a loved one suffering from poor health, up from 30 percent in 2010.

"Some of it is the aging of the population, some of it is the survival of individuals of chronic conditions which previously would've been fatal and some of it has been improved diagnosis so we can diagnose chronic conditions earlier than we would have in years past," said Dr. Albert Siu, of the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, to CBSNews.com.

The Pew study also found that 75 percent of adults aged 65 and older suffer from a chronic condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease.

"This has been recognized as a problem that has increased probably over the last almost 20 years, that we've seen a rising number of individuals with multiple chronic conditions," said Siu.

Today, people aged 65 and over represent 12.4 percent of the American population, but that number is expected to jump to 19 percent of the population by 2030.

The Pew study shows that as the U.S. population ages and medical advances save and extend more lives, care giving is likely to become more of a common role than ever before. Read more >>