Getting Clients to Follow Your Advice: The Missing Spouse

Specific to cognitive problems, some advisors make it their policy to insist on having a POA — a power of attorney — in place for all clients. It may seem awkward to require this, but if it's your default position, it has a ton of strength to it. That's because when people have a decision that's super-hard to make, many of them will just go with the default. For example, in some countries where being an organ donor is the default, more than 99% of drivers are organ donors. In the U.S., where you have to make a choice to be an organ donor, only around 25% of drivers are organ donors. If your default position is that everyone should have a POA, or everyone should have a long-term care plan, or everyone should have a contingency fund, your clients will tend to go along with it. You won't get 100% compliance, but you'll do much better than if you hadn't set that default. 

Olivia Mellan: The most important thing with a client couple, as Kol mentioned, is to meet with both of them as soon as you can. If you see that the wife is disengaged or over-surrendered to her husband, or if there's bad will between the two of them, I recommend following up with one-on-one meetings with each spouse. You may need to educate the wife that if her husband dies first, that's the worst possible time for her to learn about their financial situation. I think it's also important to educate the husband about the value of his wife being more empowered and more knowledgeable about money.

Second, I would explore the wife's network of support with her. Mary Malgoire at the Family Firm has written a wonderful brochure to educate adult children about forming a sort of committee of support for a parent in need. The main thing is to keep communication clear and open and empathetic between all members of the family.

Going Deeper: Planning for Our Mental Decline
As time goes on, more and more of us will face issues with dementia, Alzheimer's or other losses in functioning, so we have to do some thinking up front about how to handle this situation before it happens. The "network of support" means not just your family but also organizations. Who do you trust? If you find it harder to function, who would you like to be in your network of support?

When Bruce Feiler, who did "Walking the Bible" on PBS, was diagnosed with cancer, he asked some of his closest male friends to step in and support his young twin daughters if he was gone. The book he wrote about this, "The Council of Dads," is really beautiful. Although his friends' support was never needed, I think the process of creating this network was very powerful and helpful for him and his family.

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• Read the original Investment Advisor column and the entire series of scenarios.
• Check out Investing and the Aging Brain: 'What Do I Do When I Get Stupid?' on ThinkAdvisor.