A Person-Centered Approach to Financial Capacity Assessment: Preliminary Development of a New Rating Scale

Abstract

Financial exploitation and financial capacity issues often overlap when a gerontologist assesses whether an older adult’s financial decision is an autonomous, capable choice. Our goal is to describe a new conceptual model for assessing financial decisions using principles of person-centered approaches and to introduce a new instrument, the Lichtenberg Financial Decision Rating Scale (LFDRS). We created a conceptual model, convened meetings of experts from various disciplines to critique the model and provide input on content and structure, and select final items. We then videotaped administration of the LFDRS to five older adults and had 10 experts provide independent ratings. The LFDRS demonstrated good to excellent inter-rater agreement. The LFDRS is a new tool that allows gerontologists to systematically gather information about a specific financial decision and the decisional abilities in question.

Financial decision-making abilities and financial exploitation in older African Americans: Preliminary validity evidence for the Lichtenberg Financial Decision Rating Scale (LFDRS)

“…The development of the scale is described in Lichtenberg et al (2015a). The LFDRS consists of 77 multiple-choice questions with separate subscales that measure Financial Situational Awareness, Psychological Vulnerability, Undue Influence (i.e.…”

“…The older adults were consecutive cases seen by an elder law attorney Inter-rater reliability was established across 10 independent raters by having multiple raters view the videotapes and score the LFDRS. A complete description of the reliability procedures can be found in Lichtenberg et al (2015a).…”

“…The Lichtenberg Financial Decision Rating Scale (LFDRS; Lichtenberg, Stoltman, Ficker, Iris, & Mast, 2015a) applies Mast’s Whole Person Dementia Assessment method to the assessment of financial decision-making abilities (i.e., decisional abilities). The LFDRS examines the specific sentinel financial decisions an older adult is making and has made, and determines whether he or she has the requisite decisional abilities.…”

“…The LFDRS examines the specific sentinel financial decisions an older adult is making and has made, and determines whether he or she has the requisite decisional abilities. Lichtenberg and colleagues (2015) have previously described the scale’s development and its reliability. In this study we provide data to support the concurrent validity of the LFDRS, including its overall rating, total risk score, and subscale risk scores for the assessment of financial exploitation and financial decisional abilities.…”

Instruments for evaluating financial management capacity among the elderly: an integrative literature review

“…These other instruments were developed on the basis of the conceptual framework of the FCI. Most instruments were developed in the USA (8) (72.7%) 5,15,21,[23][24][25][26][27] , (Chart 1). Chart 2 displays the instruments in terms of the form of assessment of the participants, as well as the design of the validation study, the objectives and the characteristics of scope.…”