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Does a friend or older family member have difficulty hanging up telemarketers? Or be excited about a voice message "You've won a prize"? New research suggests that older people who are not on their guard against scams might also be at risk of possibly developing Alzheimer's disease.
RELATED: Dementia death rate in the United States more than doubled, says CDC
Elder fraud is a huge problem, and Monday's study does not mean that the victims of a scammer have some kind of dementia.
But scientists know that long before memory problems associated with Alzheimer's disease become apparent, people experience more subtle changes in their thinking and judgment. Neuropsychologist Patricia Boyle of Rush University's Alzheimer's Disease Treatment Center is asked if one of the early warning signs could be the type of judgmental error which can leave a person vulnerable to scams.
"When a crook approaches an elderly person, he looks for a social vulnerability – a person who is willing to have a conversation with a stranger," said Boyle. Then, the older person must interpret the intentions and emotions of this stranger, with few other things to do, to decide whether to believe what they are peddling, she explained. .
»RELATED: US Alzheimer's disease expected to double by 2060, CDC warns
Boyle has consulted data from the Financial Sector Regulatory Authority, which operates a "fraud risk indicator," to determine behaviors that may signal a vulnerability, such as answering the phone when you do not recognize the risk. number, listen to telemarketers, find it difficult to end unsolicited calls, being open to potentially risky investments and not realizing that older people often face financial abuse.
Boyle studied 935 seniors, mostly aged 70 to 80, with no known brain problems, and enrolled in a long-term project on memory and aging in Chicago. They took a scam awareness questionnaire and then had annual brain tests for an average of six years.
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During the study, 151 elderly people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and another 255 with mild cognitive impairment, sometimes a precursor to Alzheimer's disease. Participants who had had what Boyle called so-called scam awareness at the beginning of the study were more likely to have developed each of these conditions than older people more aware of the vulnerability of the study. fraud.
To take a closer look, the 264 participants who died during the study underwent an autopsy of the brain. Effectively, the less the scam became aware early in the study, the more people had a sticky plaque build-up in their brain, characteristic of Alzheimer's, Boyle said in Annals of Internal Medicine.
RELATED: How a history of miscarriage and pregnancy in women could predict the risk of Alzheimer's disease
The study can not prove a connection between low awareness of the scam and the imminent decline of thought and memory, warned Dr. Jason Karlawish of the University of Pennsylvania in an editorial d & # 39; accompaniment.
Karlawish described one of his own patients who confessed to his grandson: "I think I fell" by a lottery scam that persuaded him to pay taxes at the time. advance so that he can receive his so-called gains. It was too difficult to hang up on the polite caller. Three years later, this patient shows no signs of cognitive impairment, said Karlawish, who says he is unmotivated by the way smart crooks have managed to steal the man.
Nevertheless, the results of the study "should be a call for action for health care systems, the financial services sector and their regulators," wrote Karlawish, urging further research on what he called "remarkable results".
The possible fraudulent link is not surprising, said Beth Kallmyer, vice-president of the Alzheimer's Association, who also said she needed more research. In fact, she said older people may be reluctant to report fraud, lest their family members may think that they have been sucked in because of health problems.
Dementia or not, she advises seniors not to respond to unsolicited calls or e-mails from people they do not recognize, which makes it difficult for the target.
Previous research has suggested that seniors can begin to struggle with managing their finances, even with the normal cognitive slowing of aging.
»RELATED: Death of the United States of Alzheimer's up 55%, according to the CDC
And the increase in old age fraud has reached such a level that investment firms are now supposed to ask clients for the details of a "trusted person" that they can alert if they suspect a case of exploitation. financial. Just last week, federal agents dismantled a Medicare scam that sold useless orthopedic braces to hundreds of thousands of seniors. And every tax season, the government warns people not to let the imposters of the IRS do so because it does not call for payment.
"As seniors begin to make mistakes in finances, health care and other types of complex decisions, we need to educate the public and start asking," Do they need to # 39; s help? "Boyle said." This does not necessarily mean that someone will develop dementia. But we should be more aware of it. "
Read the full study on annals.org.
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The Health and Science Department of the Associated Press is receiving support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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