美国国家公共电台 NPR--An older person's money management errors may be a sign of some sort of dementia

An older person's money management errors may be a sign of some sort of dementia

Transcript¹

Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia leave seniors at risk for financial mismanagement and exploitation. With few regulatory safeguards, it falls on families to monitor the risk and intervene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

By 2030, an estimated 9 million Americans will be living with some sort of dementia. They will need health care and social support and also consumer financial protection. That's because people with dementia are at risk for losing control of their money. As Sarah Boden of WESA in Pittsburgh explains, these problems can even be an early symptom of illness.

SARAH BODEN, BYLINE²: Angela Reynolds pulls out faded photos of her childhood home in New Haven³, Conn.

ANGELA REYNOLDS: I don't know if you can tell here, but the blinds right there, they go out to a deck that she had built on to the house.

BODEN: This house was a point of family pride. When her mom bought it for $20,000 in 1966, she became one of the first Black homeowners in that part of town.

REYNOLDS: So this should have been a legacy⁴ for so many different reasons.

BODEN: But her family no longer owns this house, and Reynolds blames the ravages⁵ of Alzheimer's because her mom began to forget to pay the mortgage.

REYNOLDS: And we lost it.

BODEN: Reynolds had been living in another state and thought her mom was doing fine. By the time she stepped in, it was too late to stop the foreclosure. Her mom had been withdrawing large amounts of cash but wasn't paying her bills. And for some reason, she had refinanced the mortgage to a much higher interest rate. Reynolds thinks her mom might have been exploited, but there's no way to know. Dementia specialists say money problems can be one of the first signs of trouble. Robin⁶ Hilsabeck is a neuropsychologist at the UT Austin Dell Medical School.

ROBIN HILSABECK: It's not uncommon⁷ for the first sign is, you know, my loved one was scammed out of several hundred or thousands of dollars.

BODEN: Hilsabeck says errors in money management can help reveal the kind of dementia a person has. For example, when it comes to the leading cause of dementia, Alzheimer's disease...

HILSABECK: That's the one where it's really rapid forgetting.

BODEN: Including that they need to pay their bills. Lewy body dementia creates fluctuating cognition. So in the morning, a person might be perfectly⁸ capable of writing a check...

HILSABECK: And later in the day, they may not be able to do it.

BODEN: Someone with vascular⁹ dementia can have issues with their processing speed, so it's easier to confuse them and defraud¹⁰ them. And frontotemporal dementia creates behavior changes.

HILSABECK: They're disinhibited, impulsive¹¹. They do things like you would never, ever have thought they would do before, and their families come in and say, oh, my gosh.

BODEN: Research shows how financial issues are both caused by and sometimes predictive of dementia. One study of some 81,000 Medicare recipients¹² found that people with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias started to develop poor credit up to six years before their diagnosis¹³. At first, dementia can be pernicious. Early signs are often subtle and hard to recognize. Sharon Gwinn, who lives in Pittsburgh, was at the grocery store when she got an early clue that something was wrong with her husband. Her credit card was declined.

SHARON GWINN: And I was like, no, no, no, there's thousands of dollars in that account.

BODEN: Initially¹⁴, Sharon thought her identity had been stolen. What actually happened was worse. The night before, her husband of 28 years, Richard, had racked up a $3,000 tab in a Pittsburgh bar, buying rounds for strangers.

GWINN: So I was completely crushed.

BODEN: Richard was showing the first signs of Lewy body dementia. Before he got sick, Sharon says her husband had been the kind of guy who only bought used cars, which he kept until they rusted¹⁵ apart. At the time of the bar incident, Richard was seemingly normal, except for money.

GWINN: He drove for years after his financial awareness¹⁶ was gone.

BODEN: Neurologists say someone with early-stage dementia may seem perfectly functional¹⁷ in some areas of daily living, while other aspects, such as finances, spin out of control. These people are frequent targets of scams or outright¹⁸ theft - sometimes by strangers, sometimes by family members. Now Sharon is a widow, but she still worries about losing her savings¹⁹ if she gets dementia.

GWINN: I do not want my children to be responsible for taking care of me. What I have, I want my money to be spent for my care, and I don't want to burden them.

BODEN: Sharon pays a monthly fee for a service that monitors for unusual spending - like huge bar tabs - across all of her accounts. And she's designated power of attorney to her eldest²⁰ daughter. Unlike Sharon, a lot of people are not reckoning with the possibility that they could one day develop dementia. Matt Lundquist specializes in financial family therapy.

MATT LUNDQUIST: What we discover in being close to people who are struggling with something like dementia is the ways that money can represent stability, control, power, autonomy and safety.

BODEN: Some people may assume they don't need to talk to their family about money because their bank or brokerage firm is looking out for them. But advocates say the financial industry could be doing a lot more. In 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made a set of recommendations for companies to better protect the wealth of seniors. These included employee training and tweaks to fraud detection systems. But Naomi Karp, who worked at the bureau at that time, says little was done.

NAOMI KARP: We would have meetings repeatedly with some of the largest banks, and they gave a lot of lip service to these issues, but when it came right down to it, change is very, very slow.

BODEN: There's at least one regulation that seems to help. Brokerage firms are required to try to get clients to name so-called trusted contacts. The contact gets alerted if something concerning is going on with their loved one's money. But at most financial institutions, this safeguard is limited to brokerage accounts. It's not offered for checking and savings accounts. For Angela Reynolds, she wishes the bank had alerted her that her mom had stopped paying the mortgage on the family house in New Haven.

REYNOLDS: I fully²¹ believe that they noticed signs, but there was nothing in place at that time.

BODEN: Today, that home is owned by U.S. Bank. It's valued at more than $200,000. That's money Reynolds could have used to pay for her mother's care.

For NPR News, I'm Sarah Boden in Pittsburgh.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 haven   

n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所

参考例句：

• It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后，这真是一个安乐窝。
• The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。

4 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

5 ravages   

劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹

参考例句：

• the ravages of war 战争造成的灾难
• It is hard for anyone to escape from the ravages of time. 任何人都很难逃避时间的摧残。

6 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

7 uncommon   

adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的

参考例句：

• Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
• Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。

8 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

9 vascular   

adj.血管的，脉管的

参考例句：

• The mechanism of this anomalous vascular response is unknown.此种不规则的血管反应的机制尚不清楚。
• The vascular changes interfere with diffusion of nutrients from plasma into adjacent perivascular tissue and cells.这些血管变化干扰了营养物质从血浆中向血管周围邻接的组织和细胞扩散。

10 defraud   

vt.欺骗，欺诈

参考例句：

• He passed himself off as the managing director to defraud the bank.他假冒总经理的名义诈骗银行。
• He is implicated in the scheme to defraud the government.他卷入了这起欺骗政府的阴谋。

11 impulsive   

adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的

参考例句：

• She is impulsive in her actions.她的行为常出于冲动。
• He was neither an impulsive nor an emotional man,but a very honest and sincere one.他不是个一冲动就鲁莽行事的人，也不多愁善感.他为人十分正直、诚恳。

12 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

13 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

14 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

15 rusted   

v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I can't get these screws out; they've rusted in. 我无法取出这些螺丝，它们都锈住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My bike has rusted and needs oil. 我的自行车生锈了，需要上油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

17 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

18 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

19 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

20 eldest   

adj.最年长的，最年老的

参考例句：

• The King's eldest son is the heir to the throne.国王的长子是王位的继承人。
• The castle and the land are entailed on the eldest son.城堡和土地限定由长子继承。

21 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。