Factor that influence financial decision making in Huntington’s disease

Advances in technology have changed the way in which we spend and manage our money. For most this has been a liberating development but for the 750000 people living with dementia in the UK today this poses serious challenges to their ability to live independently and puts them at increased risk of financial abuse. A recent report from the Alzheimer’s society identified that scams such as cold calling, scam mail or mis-selling have cost dementia patients and their families in the region of £100 million (Alzheimer’s Society, 2011). Furthermore, changes to social care services in the UK mean that people with dementia now have the freedom to control their own care package through the introduction of personal budgets and Direct Payments (Duffy, 2010) but conversely this may have further contributed to their financial vulnerability. The Mental Capacity Act (2005) offers protection to patients who lack the capacity to make financial decision for themselves by extending their right to appoint a proxy decision maker but it offers few safeguards for those in the early stages of dementia or those who do not have a friend or family member to take on this role.

Using Huntington’s disease as a model of dementia, we will seek to identify the social, emotional and cognitive changes that directly impact upon financial decision making. Using multiple different experimental techniques in premanifest HD gene carriers and patients with early disease this project will seek to identify predictors of future financial vulnerability.

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