This excellent short video is a cautionary tale about the dangers of Alzheimer’s for Seniors. The following background story about Alzheimer’s and Money Problems is from CBS News. (“Senior Moment:” As the Boomer Generation Ages, Dr. Jon LaPook Examines How Easily Warning Signs for Alzheimer’s Are Missed. by Jonathan LaPook)
“Dr. Max Gomez was a successful OB-GYN in Miami, delivering thousands of babies. He lived the good life, but admits he was bad with money. Gomez has suffered more than a few bad investments. He is now penniless, living in a care facility paid for by Medicaid.
His son is WCBS medical correspondent Dr. Max Gomez. Even with his training, he missed the warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease until three years ago — when he discovered his father had lost every dollar he’d earned.
Dr. Gomez’s father was not practicing medicine, but still had the title of medical director at a clinic. That clinic made him legally responsible for multiple commercial loans, and took out mortgages in his name.
A girlfriend wrote thousands of dollars in checks against his savings account.
The FBI started investigating after his ID was used to file millions of dollars in false Medicare claims.
“Here he was helpless and being taken advantage of left and right,” Dr. Gomez says of his father. He adds, “There’s never one big ‘ah ha’ moment.”
Patients can seem lucid. Even as, in Dr. Gomez’s case, the disease is destroying the brain. In Alzheimer’s disease, nerve cells die in key brain regions. One of the first is the hippocampus. Damage to the hippocampus, and later the frontal lobe, affect the ability to plan organize and reason – crucial for managing money.
“You can’t retain the facts because of memory, and you can’t utilize the facts efficiently,” explains Mony John de Leon, director of the NYU Center for Brain Health. “It’s very hard – as people become deteriorated – to manage finances.”
The financial services industry realizes brokers and bankers may see aging clients more often than out-of-town families do. They’re training representatives to report warning signs including confusion, mood swings, and losing things. Susan Axelrod of the Financial Industry Regulator Authority adds, “Also importantly, changing a long term investment strategy suddenly.”
