ABSTRACT

Objectives: This work examines the clinical utility of the scoring system for the Lichtenberg Financial Decision-making Rating Scale (LFDRS) and its usefulness for decision making capacity and financial exploitation. Objective 1 was to examine the clinical utility of a person centered, empirically supported, financial decision making scale. Objective 2 was to determine whether the risk-scoring system created for this rating scale is sufficiently accurate for the use of cutoff scores in cases of decisional capacity and cases of suspected financial exploitation. Objective 3 was to examine whether cognitive decline and decisional impairment predicted suspected financial exploitation.

Methods: Two hundred independently living, non-demented community-dwelling older adults comprised the sample. Participants completed the rating scale and other cognitive measures.

Results: Receiver operating characteristic curves were in the good to excellent range for decisional capacity scoring, and in the fair to good range for financial exploitation.

Conclusions: Analyses supported the conceptual link between decision making deficits and risk for exploitation, and supported the use of the risk-scoring system in a community-based population.

Clinical Implications: This study adds to the empirical evidence supporting the use of the rating scale as a clinical tool assessing risk for financial decisional impairment and/or financial exploitation.