Robert Brokamp

Is your retirement plan too safe?

And how financial mistakes could be a sign of cognitive decline?

That and more on this Saturday personal finance edition of the Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing Podcast.

I'm Robert Brokamp, and for today's main segment, I'm going to discuss a few assumptions about retirement planning that might be too cautious.

But for some recent headlines that caught my eye, I'll start with a segment from NPR's Planet Money with the title, How Your Bank Account Might Predict Dementia.

It started with the story of Sandra Balaban, who hadn't been in close contact with her father for a while.

When she visited him, his house was a mess.

And amidst the clutter were credit card statements showing purchases of scammy-seeming health products and online subscriptions.

Her father couldn't explain them.

He had also lost the $1 to $2 million he had in his retirement accounts.

When Sandra reviewed his brokerage statements, they didn't make sense.

She described them as an extremely erratic pattern of investments.

He also hadn't paid his taxes in years.

The segment then brought in Lauren Nicholas, who is a professor of geriatrics at the University of Colorado.

And she contributed to a study which found that wealth begins to decline about six years before a dementia diagnosis due to impaired financial decision-making.

As Nicholas said in the interview, quote, End of quote.

On last week's show, we talked about estate planning with attorney Jill Mastroianni, the host of the Death Readiness Podcast.

But as we discussed, estate planning isn't just about death.

It's also the planning and legal documents you need when you or someone you love is no longer able to handle their own affairs.

So if you have older relatives, discuss with them in a very loving, gentle way, what's their plan for if and when they're no longer able to take care of themselves financially or otherwise.