“A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2021 found that Medicare beneficiaries, so those 65 and older, who go on to get diagnosed with dementia begin missing bill payments as early as six to seven years before the clinical diagnosis. They also had an increased risk of developing a subprime credit score starting two and a half years before the diagnosis. … These mistakes begin many years before an actual dementia diagnosis. And by then, a lot of the damage has already been done.”
Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing · October 2026
Context
Introducing the segment on cognitive decline and money, Brokamp cites a study on how early financial trouble shows up before a dementia diagnosis. His takeaway is to build safeguards for yourself and watch older relatives' finances.
Transcript
I will say the best source of information of the things that I am talking about is the Molly Fool Hidden Gems Investing Podcast. I do the Saturday episodes. So, all those episodes, I'm talking about just about every one of these topics. That
is fantastic. Our sister podcast, much bigger than this one, by the way, the Molly Fool Hidden Gems podcast. And, Robert, they're on Saturdays. Let's move on to number five: scare us in some new way.
…before the diagnosis. And missing payments is just one potential financial mistake that happens when we have some sort of cognitive decline, right? We might start making bad investment decisions, not paying our taxes, falling for scams, making estate planning mistakes, allowing quote-unquote helpers into our lives who are actually not there to help. And I think what this study showed is that these mistakes begin many years before an actual dementia diagnosis. And by then, a lot of the damage has already been done. So, the bottom line here is that we need to keep an eye on our older relatives. And as we get up there in years, we need to build in safeguards for our own finances so that we don't make big mistakes if we begin to suffer from some sort of cognitive decline.
And having already had some of my own n-grams silenced, I assume I'm not the only one who could relate to some aspects of this increasingly as Americans and really fellow earthlings. We're not relying on our memory in the way we once did. I was reading a wonderful book called Moonwalking with…
No, there are tests. In fact, if you've been paying attention to presidential politics over the last several years, you've probably heard about these tests because various presidents brag about how well they do on these tests, but they're real tests. My mom's 87 and she does these tests and she…
So, that's at least one way to scare away this monster. But what else do you have in mind?
More from Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing
