Dorien Bangma

120 | CHAPTER 5 performance in everyday life can only be assessed to a limited extent using the FDM test battery. As already pointed out, this is no easy task – or even an impossible one – in view of privacy considerations, as the patient needs to be willing to provide some insight into their personal finances. Lastly, the ecological validity of the tests and questionnaires used has not been sufficiently investigated yet, and more research and further development of the FDM test battery is required. An option that could be considered in this context is to add a semi-structured interview to it, focusing on both simple and complex everyday financial decisions and performance, which could be taken by the patients and/or someone who has a good knowledge of their everyday functioning. A qualitative addition of this kind to the quantitative FDM test battery could be used to investigate the ecological validity of the various FDM tests and questionnaires, and could yield an even better idea of individual ability to make financial decisions. Conclusion Assessing an individual patient’s ability to make financial decisions is a difficult task. First, it is not possible to measure the capability to make financial decisions directly. Furthermore, the capability to make financial decisions is a wide-ranging concept, which can make it difficult to assess all the aspects and concepts that fall under this heading correctly and systematically. The FDM test battery presented here, on the other hand, appears to be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of patients with various neurodegenerative disorders in terms of financial knowledge, financial judgment, financial performance and the related contextual factors. For the time being, however, caution is called for as regards applying it to individual patients and drawing conclusions about their capability to make financial decisions. In order to be able to say more about this, it would seem that more detailed research into ecological validity and a more detailed assessment of financial performance in everyday life are required.