At a Glance
Older adults had problems managing financial obligations up to six years before a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia.
Earlier detection of cognitive decline could help families protect vulnerable older adults from financial risks, including scams.
Trouble with finances may be an early sign of dementia.Daisy-Daisy / iStock / Getty Images Plus
More than 5 million Americans, most age 65 or older, are thought to be living with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease and related conditions. This number is expected to rise over the coming decades as the population ages.
Dementia involves a loss of cognitive functioning thinking, remembering, and reasoning that can interfere with daily life and activities. Researchers have found that older adults with cognitive impairment are vulnerable to financial exploitation, including scams. Even mild cognitive issues might affect the ability to manage bills and other finances. But how widespread these problems are
The anecdotes Lauren Nicholas was hearing were all similarly alarming: People with dementia were experiencing âcatastrophic financial eventsâ â often before they or their loves ones knew there was anything wrong with them.
âOnce you miss a bunch of payments, the bank owns your house or you canât get credit anymore, so I think we were kind of concerned about why this is able to happen,â said Nicholas, a health economist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Deteriorating financial capabilities have long been considered one of the earliest signs of cognitive decline, but Nicholas noted that experts still had ârelatively limited understanding of how frequent it is and when itâs happening.â