Alzheimer's and money management

There are often stories in the papers about elderly people falling victim to conmen and new research from the U.S. has found that people with Alzheimer's disease have a dramatic decline in their ability to make financial decisions. The study compared 55 people with mild Alzheimer's to 63 healthy older adults assessing them on a variety of financial skills including basic monetary skills, bill payment, understanding a bank account and identifying coins and notes. The people with Alzheimer's scored 20% lower than the control group and had declined another 10% over the course of a year.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/02/11/mild-alzheimers-lowers-financial-acumen/1899.html