Can Neuropsychological Assessment Predict Capacity to Manage Personal Finances? A Comparison Between Brain Impaired Individuals With and Without Administrators

There is currently little research addressing methods for assessing capacity to manage personal finances. The current study investigated the ability of neuropsychological assessment to assist in determining capacity to manage personal finances in an acquired brain injury (ABI) population. It was expected that in comparison to people with ABI independently managing their personal finances (ABI-I), people with ABI who have administration orders (ABI-A) would perform significantly worse on tests of executive/attention function and memory. Participants were recruited through community case management services: 28 individuals were managing their money independently (ABI-I) and 15 were judged not competent to manage their personal finances and had had an administrator appointed (ABI-A). As expected, the ABI-A group performed significantly worse than the ABI-I group on measures of executive/attentional abilities (impulse control, planning, flexibility of thinking and working memory), and these measures explained a large proportion of variance (63%) and provided good classification of group membership, with 83.7% of individuals correctly classified. However, contrary to expectation there were no significant differences between groups on measures of memory. The results provide support for the 'ecological validity' of neuropsychological assessment in assisting in determining capacity to manage personal finances in an ABI population.