Ideas of Treatment for Compulsive Hoarders

Compulsive hoarding can make life difficult for the person who has it. It is equally painful for their loved ones to see this problem in the person who matters to them. How does one treat compulsive hoarding? What are the possible hoarding treatment for hoarders?

Experts use two approaches when dealing with compulsive hoarding.

The first is through medication.

Medical treatment aims to correct whatever has gone wrong within the physical make-up of the person with compulsive hoarding problems. The assumption when you use drugs to treat a problem is that something has gone wrong inside his body, making the person behave the way he does. For compulsive hoarders, the usual drugs that have been prescribed for them are the ones used to treat depression.
What are these drugs? Some examples are citalopram,fluoxetine, paroxetine and sertraline.

Sadly, only some people with compulsive hoarding problems have responded positively to the drugs. Many who have been treated with it have not.

The other approach used to treat this disorder is cognitive behavioral therapy.

Don't be intimidated by the term. Let's break it down in order to understand it. It's called cognitive because it treats the way the person with compulsive hoarding thinks and perceives his surroundings. And it's called behavioral because it deals with the problem behaviors of the person by showing another way of acting on what he thinks about his possessions.

Here's how it works. The therapist goes to the compulsive hoarder's home. Over several visits, the therapist makes the person with the disorder aware of the way he thinks about his possessions. Then he slowly shows the person what and how to perceive his possessions in a way that the rest of the world does. He also teaches the compulsive hoarder the techniques and strategies to cope with the fears that drive the abnormal behaviors of the person. After preparing him in this way, he allows the person to use these new skills to organize his home and discard the clutter. When the compulsive hoarder has successfully gained control over his behavior, the therapist then teaches him ways to prevent the compulsions from taking over his life again.

What's the future like for the treatment of compulsive hoarding disorder?

Researchers are now studying the brain patterns of compulsive hoarders and those who are not. An interesting thing they found was that those who were hoarders had lesser brain activity in the area of the brain involved with processing what the person sees. So future treatment would look at how that can be improved to help the person with this disorder.

Is there any cure for compulsive hoarding?

Although hoarding disorder cannot be completely cured but medication or cognitive behavioral therapy can be effectively used to minimize the suffering.

Despite of the fact that there is no such cure for compulsive hoarding; a person can be helped to minimize the suffering.  People having this disorder have to struggle with this problem throughout their lives without much realization. The level of intensity of this disorder also increases with time. Nevertheless, the symptoms of hoarding can be controlled by following either of the two treatments. One is through medicines which involves rising the action level of serotonin. These medicines include celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Luvox etc.   Researches have shown positive effects of these medicines on some compulsive hoarders but these did not work for many. Unlike for many other obsessive compulsive disorders, the medication did not prove to be effective for compulsive hoarding.

The second possible treatment for compulsive hoarding disorder is cognitive-behavioral therapy. This therapy not only serves the purpose of counseling but also help the therapist in identifying the motive behind hoarding. The therapist is required to make some visits to hoarder’s place, Where through therapy techniques, he will help the patient to clear and arrange the mess as well as perk up his decision making skills. This way the patient learns to fight with the inner convictions that attempt to maintain the hoarding along with an increase in the ability to make life worthwhile. The aim of the therapist is to enable the patient to decide the things on his own. He decides what should be placed where and what things should be disposed off. Once the patient starts recovering, the therapist emphases on maintaining the routine to avoid sudden relapse.

When the brain activity of hoarders was compared with normal people, the researchers found that significant variation of activity exists between the normal and hoarder. The metabolism level in the brain region was low among hoarders. Lack of information processing issues in hoarding patients is the objective of prospective cures.

Hoarders are everywhere

Yesterday I was talking with one of my friend, and she told me that one of her relatives show the symptom of a hoarder. I thought she was kidding with me. But when I look at the pictures she took at her relative's house, I am like... oh my... This is one of the most severe hoarding behavior I have seen. Her relative is collecting plastic bag from the super market, thousands of them. Other than this, the lady (my friend's relative) also collect garbage that her neighbor throw away! She is staying in a cozy and spacious flat with 3 bedrooms, but with all the stuff she collected over the years, now in her house you can only see a narrow walking path. It's still not that bad as the house has a clear path of walking because of the other tenants stay inside. I wonder, if she has never rent out the other 2 rooms to other people, her house will definitely be in a mess like those show in Google Images when you search for "Compulsive Hoarding".

I think I have to do something to help her with this. Compulsive hoarding is a serious disorder that no one should overlook. And if one overlooked it, the circumstances will be serious.