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WASHINGTON (AP) – Does an older friend or relative have a hard time hanging up on telemarketers? Or get excited about a "You've won a prize" voicemail? Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's disease.
Elder Fraud is a huge problem, and it's not a way of life that people do not want to think about.
But scientists know that long before the memory problems of Alzheimer's become obvious, people experience more subtle changes in their thinking and judgment. Neuropsychologist Patricia Boyle of Rush University's Alzheimer's disease center may be susceptible to scams.
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"When they have an older person, they're looking for a social vulnerability – someone who is open to having a conversation with a complete stranger," said Boyle. Then the older person must interpret that stranger's intentions and emotions, with little else to go on, in deciding whether to believe what they're peddling, she explained.
What does it mean to the financial industry regulator, which operates a fraud "risk meter," to determine behaviors that could signal scam vulnerability – things such as answering the phone when you do not recognize the number, listening to telemarketers, finding it It is difficult to end up in the face of financial difficulties, being open to potentially risky investments and not realizing that seniors often face financial exploitation.
Boyle studied 935 seniors, mostly in their 70s and 80s, with no known brain problems who were enrolled in a long-running memory and aging project in Chicago. They took a scam awareness questionnaire and then took annual brain tests for an average of six years.
During the study, 151 seniors were diagnosed with Alzheimer's and another with mild cognitive impairment, sometimes a precursor for Alzheimer's. The participants who had had what they were aware of were more aware of scam vulnerability.
For a closer look, the 264 participants who died during the study underwent brain autopsies. Sure enough, the lower scam awareness at the study's start, the most people had a buildup of sticky plaque in their brains that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's, Boyle reported in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Jason Karlawish of the University of Pennsylvania in a supporting editorial, The study can not prove a link between low scam awareness and impending decline in thinking and memory.
Karlawish described one of his own patients who confessed to a grandson, "I think I've been had" by a lottery that persuaded him to pay taxes up front so he could receive his purported winnings. It was just too hard to hang on the polite caller. Three years later, that patient shows no sign of cognitive impairment, said Karlawish, who said he's flummoxed by how the clever crooks managed to rob the man.
Still, the study results "Karlawish wrote, urging further research into what he called" notable findings. "
The possible scam link is not surprising, agreed Alzheimer's Association vice president Beth Kallmyer, who also said it needs more research. In fact, she said that they may be reluctant to report fraud.
Dementia concerns or not, she advises senior citizens, who are not answerers, who do not recognize, making it difficult for them to be targeted.
Previous research has suggested that seniors can begin to have trouble managing their finances even with aging's normal cognitive slowing.
Business and financial services of a business enterprise. Just last week, federal agents broke up a Medicare scam that sold unneeded orthopedic braces to hundreds of thousands of seniors. IRS impostors – which agency will not call for payment.
"Do they need some help?" Boyle said. "As older people start making mistakes in financial, health care and other types of complex decisions, we do need to raise awareness and start asking. "It does not really mean it, it's going to go on to develop dementia, but we should become more aware."
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