Declining Credit Score Could be a Sign of Dementia, Study Finds

A dementia diagnosis can be difficult for the whole family to navigate, especially when it seemingly comes out of nowhere. There are some telltale signs you can pick up on even years in advance, and a new study claims that even a person's finances can tell you if they'll develop dementia in the coming years. 

The research, recently published by the New York Federal Reserve and Georgetown University, found an apparent link between declining credit scores and subsequent dementia diagnoses. To do this, they analyzed the credit reports and Medicare data of more than 2.4 million Americans from the years 2000 to 2017 to see if any patterns emerged. 

In the end, they found that a person's credit score, on average, starts to go south in the five years leading up to an eventual dementia diagnosis. Mortgage delinquencies, meanwhile, start ticking up in the three years before diagnosis. That gets even higher in the immediate lead-up to a diagnosis. Average credit card balances in delinquency increase by more than 50 percent in the year before diagnosis, while mortgage balances are 11 percent higher. In total, the team estimates some 600,000 debt delinquencies in the next decade will be a result of yet-to-be-diagnosed Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD). 

"These types of financial difficulties can happen long before there is a diagnosis," study co-author Carole Roan Gresenz said, per CBS News. It's key, then, for people to "prevent some of these financial difficulties before they happen."

The research supports the findings of a 2020 study that found Medicare recipients who are diagnosed with dementia are more likely to miss payments on bills, sometimes as early as six years before receiving a diagnosis. 

Be sure to double-check with all the older loved ones in your life that they aren't behind on any credit card bills or mortgage payments.