It is a time-honored tradition for the young to ridicule the old and vice-versa but some warning signs in the elderly may be serious. Elderly people are often financially savvy, and get more so with age - unless Alzheimer’s begins to set in, according to a new paper.

Scholars analyzed existing survey results from 2,800 older adults collected over 10 years in which participants rated how well they believed they handled financial tasks, such as making change, paying bills and balancing a checkbook. Participants were asked to perform various financial tasks, such as being shown a pamphlet advertising the price of a gym membership and were determining how much that membership would cost in total over a decade.

Results showed that healthy older adults have good insight into their financial abilities, and that insight improves with age and experience. They know their limits and they know their arithmetic, which makes sense since retirement means Social Security, Medicare, pensions, etc.



Unless they have Alzheimer’s disease. A common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is anosognosia, where a person becomes unaware of their cognitive abilities.  They may still believe they’re financially savvy while financial prowess has deteriorated. 

Don't rush to annoy your parents or grandparents by telling them they can't balance a checkbook but forgetting or inability to pay important bills or falling for a financial scam may mean a discussion about financial safeguards, like sharing bank account information before an individual has a total lack of awareness.

“If you have handled financial tasks all your life and you are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, you might still think, ‘I can still handle it’. And you might want to try to force your independence, but that also leaves people at risk for fraud and scams if more safeguards aren't built in to protect those people who are showing these declines in financial abilities," wrote Binghamton University psychologist Ian McDonough in their news release about the paper. "On top of that, there's a lack of awareness, so they're less likely to initiate those safeguards themselves unless they are earlier on in the process. Because of the personal importance of one’s autonomy in managing finances, working with an older adult with cognitive decline rather than taking away this autonomy is an important but tricky balance to strike.”