Articles on Hoarding Behavior in Term Paper

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181). Thus, it seems that a majority of hoarder have some kind of mental or psychiatric issue. The dementia patients who hoarded food were sometimes successfully treated with the drug fluvoxamine 15 Phenyopropanoloamine (Hwang et al., 1998, pg. 287), while most of the elderly received physical assistance in cleaning and/or clearing out the home, but this treatment was not "consistently effective" (Steketee, Frost & Kim, 2001, p. 182). A majority of the elderly hoarders were women, while dementia patients did not show a specific pattern. More than have of the elderly who hoarded lived alone, and had never married (Steketee, Frost & Kim, 2001, p. 182).

Another study in 2001 studied the same problem of hoarding in the elderly, and found some similar results. The study followed 62 cases found through social and service organizations, where the members were 65 or older. Caseworkers were interviewed about their elderly clients, and patterns were established. Often health services intervened because of the hoarding problem, and other social service agencies of one sort or another serviced the homes of the hoarders. Most of the elderly studied lived in homes or apartments. Of those that had homes, 36% also had clutter in the yards of the homes. Most of the hoarding problems came to the attention of service agencies because of complaints by neighbors, friends, or family members, and it seemed that many of the cases had a lengthy history of hoarding. Unlike the dementia patients, the elderly hoarders had more opportunity to hoard items because they were not under hospital care, and the hoarding had the potential to be far more damaging.

In addition to the obvious space and health issues with hoarding a variety of items like trash and spoiled food, both studies indicate hoarding also creates other hazards, as these studies have shown.

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Hoarding not only affects the collector, it affects the family, and even the neighbors when sanitary conditions become too difficult or dangerous to ignore. Some elderly also hoard animals, collecting large numbers of pets in addition to their other clutter, which only adds to the problem of sanitation and safety. Often, the clutter was odiferous, and when it spread to the yard of the residence, it was also an eyesore to the neighborhood.

Part of the difficulty in treatment in both elderly and dementia patients is the patients' attachment to their belongings, and often this attachment is extremely emotional and even unreasonable. This is one reason treatment of the problem is so difficult. Most patients do not want to let go of their clutter, and even if it is removed from the home, and order is restored, they begin their hoarding activities again, sometimes worse than before. In addition, most hoarders "denied, rationalized, or minimized their problems" (Steketee, Frost & Kim, 2001, p. 183), and so, they were more difficult to assist, and to urge to take care of their clutter problems.

In conclusion, both studies indicate the prevalence of hoarding, and many problems associated with it. While hoarding does occur in the general population, it also occurs in the elderly and in the mentally ill with frequency. The elderly with Alzheimer's or dementia are especially susceptible to the disorder. Hoarding seems to be quite a pervasive problem, and it seems more psychological studies are needed to fully understand the nature of hoarding, and how to treat the disorder. Making social and psychiatric workers more aware of the problem and what to look for seems like one way to begin to tackle the problem of hoarding in the elderly, and in other.....

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