Credit scores — used to gauge a person's ability to fulfill their financial commitments — can also be an early warning sign of cognitive decline, according to research from the New York Federal Reserve and Georgetown University. A person's credit score, on average, starts to weaken in the five years ahead of a dementia diagnosis, while mortgage delinquencies start increasing three years prior, researchers found in an analysis of a nationally representative sample of credit reports and Medicare data on more than 2.4 million people spanning 2000-2017.
While not everyone in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD) will fall behind on bills, for those that do, the scale of the change in delinquency is substantial. One year before diagnosis, average credit card balances in delinquency increase by more than 50% and average mortgage balances in delinquency are 11% higher, the researchers found. Roughly 600,000 delinquencies on some debt will occur over the next 10 years as a consequence of yet-to-be diagnosed ADRD, they estimate.
"Our findings substantiate the possible utility of credit reporting data for facilitating early identification of those at risk for memory disorders," the researchers state in the latest findings , which echo a 2020 study that found Medicare beneficiaries who go on to be clinically diagnosed with dementia are more likely to miss payments on bills as early as six years before diagnosis. A progressive brain disorder that diminis.
