Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Senior Citizens Having Trouble Counting Coins May
Indicate Early Sign of Alzheimer’s Disease
Researchers find managing financial matters a good
test for mild cognitive impairment
Sept. 22, 2009 – When a senior citizen begins to
lose the ability to accurately count coins and manage other financial
matters it may be an early warning sign of mild memory problems that
could develop into Alzheimer's disease, according to new research from
the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Alzheimer's Disease
Center, part of the Department of Neurology.
The findings, published in the Sept. 22 edition of
Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of
Neurology, examined patients with a condition known as mild cognitive
impairment (MCI), thought to be a precursor to Alzheimer's.
The researchers followed 87 people with MCI and 76
others (controls) with no memory problems. The participant's ability to
manage certain financial skills was assessed at the beginning of the
study and then again one year later, using a UAB-developed tool called
the Financial Capacity Instrument (FCI).
The skills included understanding a bank statement,
balancing a checkbook, paying bills, preparing bills for mailing and
counting coins and currency.
During the course of the year, 25 of the MCI
patients had progressed to Alzheimer's disease. The overall FCI scores
for those 25 participants decreased 6 percent from their original scores
and 9 percent for checkbook-management skills. The control group and
those MCI patients who did not progress to dementia maintained the level
of their FCI scores throughout the year.
"Declining financial skills are detectable in
patients with mild cognitive impairment in the year before their
conversion to Alzheimer's disease," said Daniel Marson, Ph.D., JD,
professor of neurology and director of the UAB Alzheimer's Disease
Center.
"This indicates that physicians and health-care
providers need to watch patients with MCI closely for declining
financial skills and advise families and caregivers to take steps to
avoid negative financial events."
Marson suggests that caregivers can oversee a
patient's checking transactions, contact the patient's bank to detect
irregularities such as bills being paid twice or become co-signers on a
checking account so that joint signature is required for checks above a
certain amount. Online banking and bill payment services are additional
options for families.
"Financial capacity has emerged as a key activity
of daily living in understanding functional impairment and decline in
patients with MCI and dementia," said Marson. "The capacity to manage
one's own financial affairs is critical to success in independent
living. Impairments in financial skills and judgment are often the first
functional changes demonstrated by patients with incipient dementia."
The study was supported by the National Institute
on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health. Contributing to the
study were Kristen Triebel, PsyD, Roy Martin, Ph.D., H.R. Griffith,
Ph.D., Lindy Harrell, M.D., Ph.D., David Clark, M.D., and John
Brockington, M.D., from the Department of Neurology; Janice Marceaux,
M.A., and Ozioma Okonkwo, from the Department of Psychology; and Alfred
Bartolucci, Ph.D., from the Department of Biostatistics.
About the Alzheimer's Disease Center at UAB
The Alzheimer's Disease Center at UAB is
dedicated to providing comprehensive treatment for Alzheimer's patients
while also promoting research for the prevention and cure of Alzheimer's
disease and related disorders. The center staff seeks to alleviate the
effects of Alzheimer's disease by providing the best quality of life
possible for patients as the search for a cure continues.
About the American Academy of Neurology
The American Academy of Neurology, an association
of more than 21,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is
dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic
care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with
specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of
the brain and nervous system such as Parkinson's disease, ALS (Lou
Gehrig's disease), dementia, West Nile virus and ataxia.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is
a separate, independent institution from the University of Alabama,
which is located in Tuscaloosa. Please use University of Alabama at
Birmingham on first reference and UAB on second reference.
