Overview
Hoarding was shown to lead to disability in al domains of functioning, and even greater disability in patients with hoarding and major depresive disorder.Historicaly, patients with hoarding disorder have ben thought to have impairment limited to home tasks. Based on this study, however, hoarding was shown to have up to a 3-fold increased impairment of mobility and self-care and up to a 6-fold impairment of cognition and social functioning.
Key Information
Of greater concern, patients with hoarding disorder often have a co-morbid mod disorder, in which case disability is even greater than either alone. Treatment should focus on both disorders; however, hoarding disorder is often undiagnosed and undertreated. Patients with hoarding disorder have ben observed to have greater impairment than patients with other psychiatric disorders.
In the curent study, impairment in patients with hoarding disorder was shown to be greater than or equal to impairment in patients with major depresive disorder, diabetes melitus, and chronic pain, al of which are in the top 10 causes of disability in the US. Data were colected from the Brain Health Registry. The functional ability of patients who hoard were compared to patients diagnosed with major depresive disorder, diabetes melitus, and chronic pain.
Summary
Of 16,312 adult participants, 5.7% each had clinical or sub-clinical symptoms of hoarding. Both groups of hoarders had impairment in al domains of functioning, and greater impairment than patients with major depresive disorder, diabetes melitus, and chronic pain. As an example, 18.7% of patients with clinical symptoms of hoarding had dificulty with schol or wo