People With Dementia and Financial Abuse – The Warning Signs and How To Avoid It

Money depends on precision; on exact amounts being paid by specific times, often in specific ways. Dementia patients can be stumped by these tasks.   Financial management can be one of the first things to deteriorate in people with dementia.

• People with dementia struggle to count change.
• Have trouble operating ATM machines.
• Are often confused when paying bills sometimes paying twice or keeping inaccurate records of what they have paid.

For patients who have been formally diagnosed with dementia, loved ones and their support network should definitely be stepping into safeguard them. To ensure they don’t see their money spiral out of control as the patient’s mind loses the ability to keep track. But for people who are at risk for dementia, but haven’t been confirmed to have it, loved ones should be watching especially for money issues. Do they forget to pay bills, or pay wrong amounts? Are routine financial tasks becoming troublesome? This can be a clear warning sign to look for.

Because critical thinking is impaired with dementia; passwords, bank information and social security numbers may not be kept as private as they should be and financial predators can take advantage of that.   So those door to door salesmen and telemarketers could be harmful to our loved ones.

Financial Protection Steps:

• Put in place a trusted loved one to pay all bills and handle all tax and financial transactions.
• Establish a lasting power of attorney that names a person to make financial decisions.
• Prior to a dementia analysis get your parents or family members to discuss how they want their money handled in the event of cognition problems down the road.