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 For the study, researchers gave scam awareness questionnaires to 935
older people who didn't have dementia. Five questions assessed how
open people were to sales pitches, how interested they were in
potentially risky investments, and whether they understood that
elderly people are more vulnerable to scams.
On average, participants scored 2.8 out of a possible five points,
with higher scores indicating lower scam awareness.
After an average follow up of six years, 151 participants developed
Alzheimer's disease and 255 developed mild cognitive impairment.
Low scam awareness was associated with a 56 percent higher risk of
Alzheimer's and a 47 percent higher risk of mild cognitive
impairment, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"Decreased scam awareness may be a very early sign of Alzheimer's
disease - one that is present well before cognitive symptoms are
recognizable," said lead study author Patricia Boyle of the
Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in
Chicago, Illinois.
"Evaluations of behaviors such as scam susceptibility may help to
identify who is at greatest risk of developing cognitive impairment
and who may benefit most from therapeutic intervention," Boyle said
by email.
Alzheimer's, which gradually destroys memory and thinking skills, is
the most common cause of dementia among older adults. Inside the
brain, Alzheimer's is associated with abnormal clumps known as
amyloid plaques and tangled bundles of fibers, often called tau or
tangles. Scientists suspect that the damage begins in the
hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in memory.
The only way to confirm an Alzheimer's diagnosis is by doing a brain
autopsy.
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Researchers examined autopsy results for 264 people who died during
the study. They found the brains of people with lower scam awareness
had more damage associated with Alzheimer's.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how scam awareness might directly influence the risk of
developing Alzheimer's or dementia.
One limitation of the study is that Alzheimer's can take years to
develop and the study may not have been long enough to detect all
cases that might develop with more time, the study authors note.
It's also unclear whether people who had low scam awareness in
questionnaires might actually become the victims of financial scams
in real life.
"Memory loss is an early sign of Alzheimer's disease," said Dr.
Jason Karlawish, co-director of the Penn Memory Center at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
"This study suggests that, perhaps, changes in social cognition are,
too; meaning, changes in the ability to judge other people's
emotions and social cues may signal a person is at risk of cognitive
decline," Karlawish, author of an accompanying editorial, said by
email.
Family members and caregivers of older adults should keep a close
eye on how well they manage money, and find a way to monitor their
financial transactions to try to head off scams, Karlawish advised.
Ideally, older adults should give online view-only access to
accounts and be cautious about who gets access to their financial
records.
"Be aware that a power of attorney is a power to steal and that
joint accounts are just that, joint," Karlawish said. "The other
holder can spend the money as he sees fit and spend it legally."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2ZdwPgU Annals of Internal Medicine, online
April 15, 2019.
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