Dipali Pathak713-798-4710

Fiscal health as important as physical health for older Americans

HOUSTON -- (September 8, 2008) -- Baylor College of Medicine has announced an initiative to focus on the growing problem of investor fraud among the elderly, particularly those with mild cognitive impairment.

The program, funded by a grant from the Investor Protection Trust, will train physicians and other caregivers to identify and assist those individuals at risk of elder investment fraud due to mild cognitive impairment.

Dr. Robert Roush, associate professor of medicine-geriatrics at BCM, said while older patients who have mild cognitive impairment or early onset dementia are able to perform many routine day-to-day activities, they cannot always manage their investments as well as before. "We talk about physical health and psychological health, but we also need to start asking about fiscal health," said Roush.

Recognizing potential problem

The "Preventing Investment Fraud in Older Adults" program focuses on raising health care professionals' level of clinical suspicion about potential investment fraud when they see a patient with mild cognitive impairment. BCM will work with experts and physicians to enhance existing screening tools to enable health care professionals to determine if an older patient with mild cognitive impairment is susceptible to investment fraud or mismanagement or to determine if the patient is being victimized. Clinicians would then be able to appropriately refer the individual for further neuropsychologic testing, to a Professional Geriatric Care Manager with expertise in assisting people in the area of managing their finances, or to the Texas State Securities Board.

Don Blandin, CEO of the Investor Protection Trust, said, "The importance of this new project was underscored by a recent study (Plassman 2008) at Duke University showing the estimate of persons 71 years of age and older who have cognitive impairment plus full dementia to be 8.8 million. That is about 35 percent of the 25 million persons in that age group, many of whom may be vulnerable to investment fraud. Educating health care professionals to recognize an older patient's financial vulnerability could provide an important first line of defense in preventing elder investment fraud."

Abuse takes many forms

Additional components of the program include the development and dissemination of continuing education materials for doctors and educational materials and resources for patients and their families. The program brings together a variety of disciplines to increase awareness about and to prevent elder investment fraud including experts in the field of aging, neuropsychology, elder abuse, the economics of aging, and investor education/investment fraud prevention.

"We have a responsibility to protect people against all forms of abuse," said Roush. "As the older population of 37 million today more than doubles in the next two decades, so will those who will experience cognitive impairments that place them at risk of fraudulent schemes. And every day, 12,000 Baby Boomers turn 62 years of age, becoming eligible for early Social Security; not nearly enough of them have the fiscal resources to retire any time soon. Were their financial portfolios to be adversely affected by poor investment decisions or scams, they won't have as good of an old age as they otherwise could."

Roush's BCM collaborators are Dr. Aanand Naik, assistant professor of medicine; Dr. George Taffet, chief of the section of geriatrics and associate professor of medicine; Dr. Larry McCullough, professor in the Center for Ethics and Health Policy; Dr. Mark Kunik, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; and Nancy Wilson, assistant professor of medicine-geriatrics, at the Huffington Center on Aging at BCM. Naik, Kunik, and Wilson are also associated with the Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. The program is part of a broader initiative by this team of investigators to develop capacity assessments and interventions to promote safe and independent living among vulnerable older adults.

The "Preventing Investment Fraud in Older Adults" program is funded by a grant from the Investor Protection Trust (IPT). The IPT is a nonprofit organization devoted to investor education. Since 1993 the IPT has worked with the States to provide the independent, objective investor education needed by all Americans to make informed investment decisions.