Let Us Talk Money: Subjectively Reported Financial Performance of People Living with Neurodegenerative Diseases — A Systematic Review

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) form a heterogeneous, widespread group of disorders, generally characterized by progressive cognitive decline and neuropsychiatric disturbances. One of the abilities that seems particularly vulnerable to the impairments in NDDs is the capability to manage one’s personal finances. Indeed, people living with NDDs were shown to consistently present with more problems on performance-based financial tasks than healthy individuals. While objective, performance-based tasks provide insight into the financial competence of people living with NDDs in a controlled, standardized setting; relatively little can be said, based on these tasks, about their degree of success in dealing with the financial demands, issues, or questions of everyday life (i.e., financial performance). The aim of this systematic review is to provide an overview of the literature examining self and informant reports of financial performance in people living with NDDs. In total,
22 studies were included that compared the financial performance of people living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease, or multiple sclerosis to a (cognitively) normal control group. Overall, the results indicate that people living with NDDs are more vulnerable to impairments in financial performance than cognitively normal individuals and that the degree of reported problems seems to be related to the severity of cognitive decline. As the majority of studies however focused on MCI and/or AD and made use of limited assessment methods, future research should aim to develop and adopt more comprehensive assessments to study strengths and weaknesses in financial performance of people living with different NDDs.