Some 7 Million Seniors Are At Risk of Making Financial Mistakes

New Study Shows 15% Have Trouble Managing Money As Their Cognitive Skills Decline

There's a new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association, featured in their publication called Network Open. 7 million seniors have mental declines that might be impacting their financial skills, and yet 75% of them are still managing their own money.

This puts our seniors at high risk of making financial mistakes. Everything from not paying bills to making risky investment choices and financial exploitation is a big concern. Eight out of 10 of the people studied in this research did not have detectable cognitive impairment, so you couldn't really tell. 20% of them did. And yet 40% of these people live alone. And when they were interviewed, 15% said it was difficult for them to handle their own money. And yet they're continuing to do it. The crazy part, the scary part - their average assets? $215,000 in stocks. So these people have hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

They're finding it difficult to manage their affairs, and yet they're still doing it all by themselves.

Is it possible that there's somebody you know who might be in this situation? Don't assume that your parents who have been managing their money their whole lives are still capable of doing so. Maybe it's time to have a conversation.

And if you want to avoid that fate, if you want to make sure that your cognitive skills remain strong, we have new research from the Psychological Science publication. They say that those who play musical instruments perform better on cognitive tests. So if you aren't playing the guitar or the piano or the banjo, maybe it's time you picked it up. I think maybe I'll have to start doing that myself.