Clinical interview assessment of financial capacity in older adults with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate financial capacity in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a clinician interview approach. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: Tertiary care medical center. PARTICIPANTS: Healthy older adults (n=75) and patients with amnestic MCI (n=58), mild AD (n=97), and moderate AD (n=31). MEASUREMENTS: The investigators and five study physicians developed a conceptually based, semistructured clinical interview for evaluating seven core financial domains and overall financial capacity (Semi-Structured Clinical Interview for Financial Capacity; SCIFC). For each participant, a physician made capacity judgments (capable, marginally capable, or incapable) for each financial domain and for overall capacity. RESULTS: Study physicians made more than 11,000 capacity judgments across the study sample (N=261). Very good interrater agreement was obtained for the SCIFC judgments. Increasing proportions of marginal and incapable judgment ratings were associated with increasing disease severity across the four study groups. For overall financial capacity, 95% of physician judgments for older controls were rated as capable, compared with 82% for patients with MCI, 26% for patients with mild AD, and 4% for patients with moderate AD. CONCLUSION: Physicians and other clinicians can reliably evaluate financial capacity in cognitively impaired older adults using a relatively brief, semistructured clinical interview. Patients with MCI have mild impairment in financial capacity, those with mild AD have emerging global impairment, and those with moderate AD have advanced global impairment. Patients with MCI and their families should proactively engage in financial and legal planning, given these patients' risk of developing AD and accelerated loss of financial abilities.

Geriatric heart failure, depression, and nursing home admission: an observational study using propensity score analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Heart failure (HF) and depression are both common in older adults, and the presence of depression is known to worsen HF outcomes. For community-dwelling older adults, admission to a nursing home (NH) is associated with loss of independent living and poor outcomes. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of depression on NH admission for older adults with HF. METHODS: Using the 2001-2003 National Hospital Discharge Survey datasets, the authors identified all community-dwelling older adults who were discharged alive with a primary discharge diagnosis of HF. The authors then identified those with a secondary diagnosis of depression. Using a multivariable logistic regression model, the authors then determined probability or propensity to have depression for each patient. The authors used propensity scores for depression to match all 680 depressed patients with 2,040 nondepressed patients. Finally, the authors estimated the association between depression and NH admission using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Patients had a mean (+/- standard deviation) age of 79 (+/- 8) years, 72% were women, and 9% were blacks. Compared with 17% nondepressed patients, 25% depressed patients were discharged to a NH. Depression was associated with 50% increased risk of NH admission (unadjusted relative risk [RR]: 1.50; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.28-1.74). The association became somewhat stronger after multivariable adjustment for various demographic and care covariates (adjusted RR: 1.60; 95% CI: 1.35-1.68). CONCLUSION: In ambulatory older adults hospitalized with HF, a secondary diagnosis of depression was associated with a significant increased risk of NH admission.