Hoarding
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Research into hoarding explores a dilemma that touches families and communities everywhere.
Aired October 22, 2007
2 minutes (1.8 MB) | Download mp3
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Research into hoarding explores a dilemma that touches families and communities everywhere.From the University of Kansas, this is Research Matters. I'm Brendan Lynch.
Investigators at KU’s School of Social Welfare recently studied older adult hoarders – people who collect so many possessions or pets that their living spaces become unusable after a time. Rosemary Kennedy Chapin led the study.
Chapin: Things that are horded sometimes are newspapers, old food, animals. You get into not only the health and safety of the individual, but of the animals. What happens then is a whole lot of different kind of groups get involved, maybe one home is being visited by animal control, adult protective services the police are there, the area agencies on aging. One of the issues then is how are all these groups working together. “
Chapin, a professor in the KU School of Social Welfare and Director of the Office of Aging and Long-term Care, says that data collected over nine months from both rural and urban areas gave a picture of the typical hoarder.
Chapin: We found that the average age of the hoarders — and remember we were only looking at people aged 60 and above — was 74 in that population. We found that most were women, but that’s pretty typical. We found that many had co-occurring types of problems, mental illnesses or physical illnesses.”
One goal of the study was to find ways to preserve hoarders’ independence within their communities. Chapin says sometimes it requires involvement by mental health professionals, and sometimes it just takes someone willing to clean house.
Chapin: Many times it is treated as an obsessive-compulsive disorder. On the other hand, sometimes people have had good luck just going in and just taking kind of a straightforward approach — working with the older adult just going in to clean things up and working intensively with them and coming back time after time after time. That’s shown some effectiveness with some kinds of clients.
For more about hoarding and aging populations, log on to Research Matters DOT K-U DOT E-D-U. From the University of Kansas, I'm Brendan Lynch.
