| Difficulty with financial capacity (i.e., difficulty with efficiently managing one's finances), a common consequence in individuals with moderate to severe brain injury, has been found to affect self-autonomy and limit the individual from fully integrating into the community. Previous studies have found that individuals with brain injury have impaired financial capacity six months post-injury. However, the nature of financial capacity with post-injury periods extending to more than a year has not been studied. Moreover, there is mixed evidence regarding the nature and extent to which different cognitive abilities contribute to financial capacity. Therefore, the current study had three specific aims: (1) To compare the nature of financial capacity in individuals with chronic, moderate to severe acquired brain injury (ABI) with demographically matched controls. (2) To examine the contributions of various cognitive abilities (attention, working memory, executive functions, impulsivity) to financial capacity in the ABI group. (3) To investigate the association between the self-report and informant-report report of financial capacity, in the ABI group. A total of 25 participants with chronic, moderate to severe ABI were recruited from a day-treatment program, and 9 age and education matched-healthy control participants were recruited from the community. All participants were administered a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests to measure cognitive abilities and the Financial Competence Assessment Inventory (FCAI) to assess financial capacity. In addition, 22 informants were interviewed using the Third Party Perspective FCAI. Results indicated that the control group outperformed the ABI group on the overall and the different dimensions of financial capacity. In the ABI group, specific cognitive abilities, including attention, working memory, delayed verbal memory, abstract reasoning and impulsivity contributed to different dimensions of financial capacity. However, no associations were found between ABI- and informant-reports of financial capacity suggesting the confounding presence of a combination of cognitive impairments and biases. These findings shed light on the compromised nature of financial management in ABI individuals years after a brain injury, and underscore the importance of focusing on continued monitoring and rehabilitation of this crucial functional ability. |
