 TITLE: How to Help Older Adults Deal With Dementia and Their Finances CONTENT: Financial Problems Are an Early Indicator\n-----------------------------------------\nResearchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors reviewed de-identified Medicare claims and credit report data for more than 81,000 people living in single-person households. About 1 in 3 people studied were diagnosed with dementia over a 15-year period. Researchers reviewed their financial outcomes beginning up to seven years prior to diagnosis and for four years following diagnosis. They also compared these outcomes with the finances of people who weren't diagnosed with dementia, and those who had other health difficulties.\nHere's what they found:\n*   **Missed bills are an early warning sign.** Study participants diagnosed with dementia were more likely to miss bill payments starting as early as six years before a clinical diagnosis.\n*   **Problems with paying bills can lead to credit issues.** Missed payments and other adverse financial outcomes led to an increased risk of developing subprime credit scores (credit scores rated fair or lower) starting 2.5 years before a dementia diagnosis.\n*   **Being late on bills is a persistent problem.** Rates of late payments and subprime credit risk persisted for up to 3.5 years after beneficiaries received dementia diagnoses.\n\"Our study is the first to provide large-scale quantitative evidence of the medical adage that the first place to look for dementia is the checkbook,\" says study co-author Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School. \"Earlier screening and detection, combined with information about the risk of irreversible financial events, like foreclosure and repossession, are important to protect the financial wellbeing of the patient and their families.\" END