Study finds seniors are money savvy – until dementia sets in

(Press-News.org) Older adults are quite aware of their financial abilities – and these abilities actually improve with age – that is, until dementia sets in, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

From paying bills to making change, knowing how to handle money is necessary to live and thrive in society. But what happens as we get older? Do our financial abilities decline and if so, are we even aware of our own shortcomings?

To examine this, a team of researchers led by Binghamton University psychologist Ian McDonough analyzed data from a pre-existing study of 2,800 older adults collected over 10 years. Participants rated how well they believed they could handle various financial tasks, such as making change, paying bills and balancing a checkbook. The researchers then asked participants to perform various financial tasks. In one test, individuals were shown a pamphlet advertising the price of a gym membership and were asked to determine how much that membership would cost in total over a decade.

The researchers found that older adults have good insight into their financial abilities, and this actually improves with age and experience.

“We really didn't know how well people would rate their financial abilities and predict them. And they can predict them surprisingly well,” said McDonough, an associate professor of psychology at Binghamton University and lead author of the study. “It does seem people get better with time. So by the time you get to your 70s, as long as you maintain your cognition decently well, you're able to predict your financial ability slightly better. It's almost like you do learn as you get more and more experience, especially as you retire, and you’re dealing with Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and all those types of things that have to do with finances.”

But the same doesn’t apply to those with Alzheimer’s disease. The ability to predict one’s financial prowess actually deteriorates with a diagnosis. Individuals with Alzheimer’s might be low in financial ability and think they’re financially savvy, or vice versa.

A common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is anosognosia, where a person becomes unaware of their cognitive abilities. Most research in this area has focused on anosognosia as it relates to memory, but very little is known about how it relates to one’s financial abilities. 

“This was one of the first studies to look at whether, as people get older, are they aware of their financial performance ability, and are they aware of when it starts to decline?“ said McDonough.

McDonough highlighted the importance of early financial safeguards and education for older adults, who risk being unable to pay important bills or falling prey to financial scams. He suggests that earlier on, when individuals might think their financial abilities are starting to decline, family members and friends might work with the individual to brainstorm how to set up safeguards and share bank account information so things are safely in place before an individual has a total lack of awareness.

“If you have handled financial tasks all your life and you are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, you might still think, ‘I can still handle it’. And you might want to try to force your independence, but that also leaves people at risk for fraud and scams if more safeguards aren't built in to protect those people who are showing these declines in financial abilities. On top of that, there's a lack of awareness, so they're less likely to initiate those safeguards themselves unless they are earlier on in the process. Because of the personal importance of one’s autonomy in managing finances, working with an older adult with cognitive decline rather than taking away this autonomy is an important but tricky balance to strike.”

McDonough said that future research will explore older adults’ brain activity during math tasks as well as their digital banking literacy.

The paper, “Relationship between Perceived and Objective Financial Abilities Among Older Adults: Results From the ACTIVE Cohort,” will be published in The Gerontologist on June 2.

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