Many older Americans lose wealth before dementia diagnosis

By Ernie Mundell of HealthDay News. It is always interesting to see how economics is connected to so many other aspects of our lives. Excerpts:

"the median household net worth of the seniors in the study dropped by more than half in the eight years before they were diagnosed with dementia, but dipped much less for folks who retained their mental capacity, according to a team reporting Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology.

"Household wealth, especially financial wealth, declined much faster among people with probable [undiagnosed] dementia than [healthy] controls during the decade before dementia onset," concluded researchers led by Jing Li. She works at the Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle.

It's well documented that aging people who are losing mental acuity can find finances tough to manage, and are also prime targets for scammers. Li and colleagues wondered if mental deterioration might be reflected in the financial deterioration of a person's assets, as well.

Eight years before the onset of what later was diagnosed as dementia, the median net worth of people in that group was just over $217,000, Li's group reported. That wasn't much different from the nearly $211,000 averaged by folks who retained their mental health.

But in the years leading up to a dementia diagnosis, average net worth fell by more than half, to just over $104,000, the research found. In contrast, net worth declined only slightly -- to an average of more than $187,000 -- among people unaffected by dementia."

"Li's group said it "may reflect deteriorating financial capability associated with cognitive decline [including susceptibility to fraud]."

Of course, it might also reflect "the need to draw down assets to pay for increasing medical and long-term care expenses or qualify for Medicaid coverage of nursing home care," the researchers theorized. The exact reasons behind the financial declines need to be further examined in future research, they said."