Quantifying Risk of Financial Incapacity and Financial Exploitation in Community-dwelling Older Adults: Utility of a Scoring System for the Lichtenberg Financial Decision-making Rating Scale

Abstract

<b>Objectives</b>: This work examines the clinical utility of the scoring system for the Lichtenberg Financial Decision-making Rating Scale (LFDRS) and its usefulness for decision making capacity and financial exploitation. Objective 1 was to examine the clinical utility of a person centered, empirically supported, financial decision making scale. Objective 2 was to determine whether the risk-scoring system created for this rating scale is sufficiently accurate for the use of cutoff scores in cases of decisional capacity and cases of suspected financial exploitation. Objective 3 was to examine whether cognitive decline and decisional impairment predicted suspected financial exploitation.<b>Methods</b>: Two hundred independently living, non-demented community-dwelling older adults comprised the sample. Participants completed the rating scale and other cognitive measures.<b>Results</b>: Receiver operating characteristic curves were in the good to excellent range for decisional capacity scoring, and in the fair to good range for financial exploitation.<b>Conclusions</b>: Analyses supported the conceptual link between decision making deficits and risk for exploitation, and supported the use of the risk-scoring system in a community-based population.<b>Clinical Implications</b>: This study adds to the empirical evidence supporting the use of the rating scale as a clinical tool assessing risk for financial decisional impairment and/or financial exploitation.