Older adults with dementia misjudge their financial skills – which may make them more vulnerable to fraud, new research finds

Older adults generally have a good sense of their own financial abilities – unless they have dementia. shapecharge/E+ via Getty Images

Older adults diagnosed with dementia lose their ability to assess how well they manage their finances, according to a recent study I co-authored in The Gerontologist. In comparison, people of the same age who don’t have dementia are aware of their financial abilities – and this awareness improves over time.

For our study, we used data from over 2,000 adults in the U.S. age 65 and older, collected during a long-term study on aging. We focused on how participants’ financial skills changed over time. The study began in 1998 and is still running, but we probed data collected between 1998 and 2009.