Despite the risks of decline in financial management (FM), financial decision making (FDM) and
vulnerability to financial exploitation (FE), many memory impaired older adults continue to
manage their own and their family's finances. Financial management is defined here as
planning, organizing and controlling one's own personal finance activities. Financial decision
making is defined as the use of personal finances for purchases, investments, savings or gifts.
Financial exploitation is defined as misuse of another's money through fraud or theft. Not only
do individuals with memory impairment continue to manage their own money, but they also
experience significant wealth loss without realizing it. In addition, those older adults in the
earliest phases of memory decline often experience declines in financial decision making (FDM)
resulting in significantly higher financial exploitation (FE) victimization. Our goal is to sample
those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or Perceived Cognitive Impairment (PCI), create a
new “real world” FM test from the older individual's bank records, and examine the older adult's
wealth loss, FDM and vulnerability to FE. We propose to engage 200 research participants in
our study by sampling from our NIA P30 Alzheimer's and RCMAR Centers so as to over-sample
Urban African Americans. Participants will be interviewed across 3-steps: (a) insuring they meet
inclusion criteria, (b) sharing electronic bank statements, and (c) participating in our interview
and evaluation once we have analyzed the bank statements (we are able to perform this data
collection by phone or videoconferencing if necessary due to Covid-19). This approach will
enable us to gain an understanding of how those with early memory loss perceive their
finances, what early wealth loss warning signs can be identified, and what contextual and
intellectual measures are related to wealth loss and financial mismanagement. By
accomplishing our aims, we will provide important new methods and knowledge about the
intersection of FM, FDM, wealth loss and vulnerability to FE. This knowledge will be
fundamental to a R01 study to examine wealth changes and FE over time and to develop
intervention strategies based on Motivational Interviewing.
