Dementia, the Cruel Financial Deceiver, Unmasked
Unseen and subtle warning signs of dementia can bring financial ruin.
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do. — Golda Meir
Dementia doesn’t appear suddenly one day, revealed by poor test scores at a memory center, nor is it the small slip-ups in memory all of us experience. It is a slow, poorly detected deadly process that begins long before it is recognized, according to new research directed not at the psychological but the financial.
In this cohort study of 81,364 Medicare beneficiaries living in single-person households, those with ADRD were more likely to miss bill payments up to 6 years prior to diagnosis and started to develop subprime credit scores 2.5 years prior to diagnosis compared with those never diagnosed. These negative financial outcomes persisted after ADRD diagnosis, accounted for 10% to 15% of missed payments in our sample, and were more prevalent in census…
