Do you think you can tell if an aging client is competent to make financial decisions just by talking on the phone or meeting with him?
Think again. Financial competency is a very complex matter. Doctors, lawyers, judges, elders’ families and YOU a financial services professional, should never assume that you can decide all by yourself that an aging client is just fine because you and the client can carry on a pleasant social conversation.
According to eminent researcher, Dr. Daniel Marson, who is both a neuropsychologist and a lawyer, financial capacity has eight separate “domains”, all of which must be intact for a person to be considered fully competent. Dr. Marson has been studying the problem of loss of financial capacity in Alzheimer’s patients for decades at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He and his colleagues have developed a psychometric test, still in the “beta” stages, to actually measure financial capacity. It’s not out there for the public yet, but we hope it will be soon.
Carolyn Rosenblatt with Dr. Daniel Marson
If you are curious about what the domains of financial capacity are and how to identify red flags that can warn you something in your aging client’s brain may be eroding, contact us at AgingInvestor.com. We are a nurse-lawyer, psychologist team with expertise in aging and how it affects decision making. We have developed programs to assist you in standardizing how you work with aging investors and how you address the clients who become problematic over time with financial decisions. We can guide you with establishing policies that are senior-specific and can protect both the client and the financial services professional. And we can train you and your staff to implement these policies.
We look forward to meeting with you!
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Attorney, Mediator &
Dr. Mikol Davis, Gerontologist, Psychologist,