Problems Managing Money May Surface Shortly Before Alzheimer’s Disease Sets In

The study involved 76 older people with no memory problems and 87 older people with mild memory problems but no symptoms of dementia, known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The participants were given a money management test at the beginning of the study and then again after one year.

The test included tasks of counting coins, making grocery purchases, understanding and using a checkbook, understanding and using a bank statement, preparing bills for mailing, and detecting fraud situations.

After one year, 25 of the 87 people with MCI had developed Alzheimer’s type dementia. The study found that while those people with no memory problems and those with MCI who did not develop dementia scored higher initially and maintained the same scores a year later, the scores of those people with MCI who developed dementia were lower initially and dropped by nine percent on checkbook management abilities, and six percent on overall financial knowledge and skills during the same period.

“Our findings show that declining money management skills are detectable in patients with MCI in the year prior to developing Alzheimer’s disease,” said study senior author Daniel Marson, JD, PhD, with the Department of Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“Doctors should proactively monitor people with MCI for declining financial skills and advise them and their caregivers about steps they can take to watch for signs of poor money management,” said Marson. “Caregivers should consider overseeing a person’s checking transactions, contacting the person’s bank to find money issues such as bills being paid twice, or become cosigners on the checking account so that both signatures are required for checks written above a certain amount. Online banking and bill payment services are also good options.”

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 21,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), dementia, West Nile virus, and ataxia.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com or www.thebrainmatters.org

Media Contact

Rachel L. Seroka American Academy of Neurology

More Information:

http://www.aan.com

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

New yttrium-hydrogen compounds discovered

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have made a significant scientific breakthrough by discovering new yttrium-hydrogen compounds having serious implications for the research on high-pressure superconductivity. High-pressure superconductivity refers to…

New AI model detects ninety percent of lymphatic cancer cases

Medical image analysis using AI has developed rapidly in recent years. Now, one of the largest studies to date has been carried out using AI-assisted image analysis of lymphoma, cancer…

UTA preps giant particle detectors for neutrino project

Excavation of caverns part of Fermilab’s Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. With excavation work complete at the site where four gigantic particle detectors for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be…

Partners & Sponsors