Although advisors play a critical role in detecting cognitive decline, the matter remains a delicate one.
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The challenge is that more than two-thirds of “community-dwelling older adults” who have dementia haven’t been diagnosed formally, he says. “There are a lot of people out there who are living with dementia years before they actually get a formal diagnosis, and some people never get diagnosed.” In theory – although not yet widely in practice – technological tools such as artificial intelligence could identify financial behaviours that are a precursor to dementia. There’s a parallel in medicine, in which Dr. Sinha says it’s often possible to detect the start of memory problems in bloodwork to monitor well-controlled chronic conditions such as diabetes, a thyroid disorder or high cholesterol.
Automating decisions Dr. Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, director of financial security research at the National Institute on Ageing, has been researching the benefits of “automated income” in retirement through an employer pension plan or a program such as the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan. Automating some of the flow of money out of a household by, for example, setting up pre-authorized bill payments may help as well. Ideally, this type of intervention should happen before cognitive decline sets in.
“People don’t like to talk about bad things happening to their future selves – but if it’s done by a professional, people are more open to those conversations,” she says. A red flag may be a client who has always been very detail-oriented and who starts to forget key information. One of Ms. Wong’s clients in his 80s called to arrange payment for taxes due but was confused about why the bill was so high and unsure where the money would come from.
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