How To Prepare For A Decline In A Client’s Mental Capacity

Working with clients with diminishing mental capacities is a situation that many financial advisers are going to face in the future. As the baby boomer generation enters into old age more people are going to suffer from Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia is an unavoidable problem that financial planners need to plan ahead for. It is important to be well educated on what sort of symptoms and dementia related conditions to watch out for. Advisers should carefully document any and all incidents and they should be prepared to contact their clients beneficiaries or family if it is necessary. Discussing these issues with a client while they are still mentally healthy in order to plan ahead is also a good idea. As these issues become more commonplace in the future financial advisers need to have a strategy in place.

See Mark P. Cussen, Mental Capacity: How to Handle a Client’s Decline, Investopedia, November 30, 2015.