"Baby Boomers’ Biggest Financial Risk: Cognitive Decline " - Wall Street Journal. 06/06/2021
“Just starting the conversation “can feel like the hardest step,” says lead author Marti DeLiema of the University of Minnesota Life Course Center on the subject of Baby Boomers’ Biggest Financial Risk: Cognitive Decline.
From the WSJ: “For baby boomers who manage their own nest eggs, a risk is looming that has nothing to do with stock prices or interest rates.
The risk is cognitive decline, which can rob them of their judgment, often without much warning. One big mistake—or a series of smaller ones—can go unnoticed by loved ones, and potentially ravage a lifetime of hard-earned savings.
To mitigate these risks, there are things baby boomers and others can do now to prepare for any problems. In addition, big do-it-yourself investing and trading venues like Vanguard Group, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab Corp. are strengthening some of the ways they detect possible signs of decline. Among other things, all three firms check for clients’ difficulty navigating security protocols or need for frequent password resets. In such cases, a designated family member might be informed.”
Professor Marti DeLiema is an interdisciplinary gerontologist, driven to understanding how our society can cultivate long, healthy, and fulfilling lives for all citizens. An important component of aging well is avoiding financial abuse and fraud, yet victimization causes millions of Americans to become financially fragile in older age. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, Professor DeLiema studies financial victimization using focus groups, in-depth interviews, and survey and panel data. She collaborates with financial institutions, the Federal Trade Commission, the US Postal Inspection Service, the FINRA Foundation, and other agencies to analyze victimization risk factors and test efforts to inoculate consumers from fraud through enhanced consumer education and structural interventions. Her research is funded by the National Institute of Justice, the Social Security Administration, the National Institute on Aging, the Society of Actuaries, AARP and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.