Inside STAT: For early signs of dementia, check bank accounts, not biomarkers

Biomarker-based tests can offer telltale signs of disease, and researchers are trying to develop such evaluations for dementia that rely on protein biomarkers such as amyloid and tau. But there may be another, easier way to detect early dementia: financial insecurity. In a new First Opinion for STAT, the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging’s Dr. Eric Chess explains how impaired financial decision-making can appear decades before traditional signs of dementia such as memory loss. People with early stages of the disease are prone to making impulsive, irrational financial decisions that are a departure from the way they previously managed things, he writes. And that's why Chess and his colleagues at the Financial Security and Cognitive Health Initiative at the University of Denver are studying the relationship between money management and various forms of dementia. Read more here.