Originally published on BBC.com.
According to Dr. Mark Lachs, of Weill Cornell Medicine and his colleague, Dr. Jason Karlawish, from the Penn Memory Center, financial capacity can be one of the first things to decline when the brain is damaged through disease or age.
They want this process to be identified as a condition they call Age Associated Financial Vulnerability – a pattern of risky behavior that is inconsistent with choices that would previously have been made.
Dr. Karlawish says: “Financial decision-making is very challenging cognitively. Even with mild cognitive impairment, you can make mistakes with finances, even though you’re otherwise doing generally OK in your daily life.”