Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Another study on financial competency and dementia

A study conducted by a team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has shown that loss of financial competency occurs early in mild Alzheimer's and related dementias and that the decline is steep.

Here is an article about the study in Science Daily.

Here is another article from the UAB Health System.

The director of UAB Alzheimer's center had this to say:

“The impairment and eventual loss of financial competency are devastating and not uncommon consequences of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” says UAB Alzheimer’s Disease Center Director Daniel J. Marson, JD, PhD, an attorney and clinical psychologist with specialty training in neuropsychology and geropsychology. “Financial exploitation of cognitively impaired elderly persons is already rampant, will continue to grow along with an aging population, and has enormous adverse consequences for patients and their families.”

Saturday, August 02, 2008

New studies on brain deficits in the elderly

While researching efforts on fraud prevention against the elderly, I ran across two new studies, published just this year, indicating that some seemingly healthy seniors have significantly impaired decision making skills.

The first such study, by  Natalie Denburg of the University of Iowa addresses this question:

"We often read or hear stories about older adults being conned out of their life savings, but are older individuals really more susceptible to fraud than younger adults? And, if so, how exactly does aging affect judgment and decision-making abilities?"


A Denburg study

"published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, shows that 35 to 40 percent of a test group of 80 healthy older adults with no apparent neurological deficits have poor decision-making abilities.... The findings also suggest that these individuals may experience disproportionate aging of a brain region critical for decision-making."

The study went on to examine susceptibility to deceptive advertising amongst these same individuals and found significant vulnerability.

So now we're seeing scientific studies that back up what happened to Lola. Judgment can vanish long before other symptoms emerge. I'm sure the scammers have known this all along. But, by the time the family catches on, it can be too late.