These Habits Could Reveal Your Risk of Cognitive Decline

"What's good for the heart is good for the brain." That's the message from experts on reducing the risk of dementia, and it means following the rules for a heart-healthy lifestyle: Regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, no smoking, and so on.

But the risk factors for dementia are complex. While lifestyle factors can be modified, some others are impossible to change, such as your age and genetic makeup.

And although doctors can use tools to determine a patient's risk of heart disease, at present, there's no reliable tool for predicting someone's dementia risk. Symptoms can also be mistaken for other conditions. So how can we be on the lookout for cognitive decline in our loved ones? A recent study suggests a surprising answer.

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According to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open, our banking habits and our household bills could provide early warning signs of cognitive decline. If we're alert to those signs, it could make timely intervention — including heart-healthy lifestyle changes — possible.

Here's what the research showed, along with some details about signs of spending shifts that you and your loved ones may want to look out for.

Signs of financial incapacity

The researchers looked at anonymized banking records from more than 66,000 individuals. They also reviewed the banking habits of 16,742 individuals who ended up registering a power of attorney as a result of financial incapacity.

Those records were compared with a control group of 50,226 individuals with no indications of lost mental acuity.

The research found some very clear patterns. Specifically, among those who ended up registering a power of attorney, bank records showed the individuals were:

• More likely to report fraud
• More likely to report that a bank card had been lost or stolen
• More likely to ask for their PIN to be reset
• Less likely to log into their bank accounts, with one fewer login occurring each month
• 9.6 percentage points less likely to spend money on travel in the five years before registering a power of attorney
• 7.9 percentage points less likely to spend on hobbies, such as gardening

Those who experienced these changes were also more likely to spend money on items that were associated with increased time at home. For example, both electricity and gas bills increased in the five years leading up to the power of attorney registration.

The researchers also found that the differences in spending habits increased gradually as the account holder moved closer to the date when the power of attorney was registered.

Cognitive decline and your loved ones

Researchers came to a few key conclusions based on this data, including that:

• Declining financial capacity may result in a disengagement from outside activities and a retreat to the comforts of home
• Those beginning to experience lack of financial capacity may be more susceptible to scams, both because they are at home more and thus an easier target for phishing attempts and because they may not be as well positioned to detect signs of fraud
• An increase in household bills could be an indicator both of more time spent at home and increased forgetfulness, such as failure to shut off household appliances

Monitoring for these behavioral changes could help researchers — and individuals — better detect some of the earliest signs of cognitive change. And it could encourage those experiencing signs of decline to seek medical help or engage in behaviors that help stave it off, such as:

• Increasing physical activity
• Adopting a healthy, balanced diet rich in Omega-3s
• Getting out to meet friends and family more frequently
• Making quality sleep a priority
• Getting enough cognitive stimulation, including doing puzzles or other activities that stimulate the brain

Family members who notice older loved ones taking far less interest in hobbies or travel should help them assess their financial fitness and begin guarding their finances before fraud occurs. Because, as the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure.

Related content

• The Delightful Way to Protect Your Cognitive Health
• The Surprising Way to Reduce Your Dementia Risk
• Could Technology Use Help Lower the Risk of Dementia? A New Study Says Yes