Essay On Hoarding

1989 Words8 Pages

For the purpose of this paper, 2 persons were selected for the interview on hoarding and the interview were conducted at their home to visually understand their difficulties. Both are very different in many ways – age, ethnic group, marital status, family background and current socio-economic status. 2 other persons were also selected for the comparison exercise and both are non-hoarders. The first interviewee is called Mr A. Mr A is a 93-year-old Malay man who currently lives with his adult daughter. He is married and used to own his own house. His house was sold about 15 years ago after his children got married and moved into their own homes. The 3 storey house was too big for the elderly Mr and Mrs A to manage with the help of only 1 domestic …show more content…

He gets upset when asked questions about his children or about getting rid of his items. He was able to joke however, when discussing about the items he found and collected. In contrast, Mr Q only started hoarding items a few years ago but seems to have more items than Mr A who has been hoarding for a longer period of time. This is probably due to Mr A’s children who has stepped in to take control of his hoarding. Hoarding is characterized by the acquisition of and failure to discard a large number of possessions that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress or impairment. (Frost & Hartl, 1996) Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. (Mataix-Cols & De la Cruz, 2013). Johns Hopkins study show that hoarding behavior is more prevalent among older adults (Samuels et al., 2008). I used the Hoarding Rating Scale and the ICD Clutter-Hoarding Scale to rate both Mr A and Mr Q. Mr A scored 17 and Mr Q scored 34 on the Hoarding Rating Scale. Mr A falls under Level 1/Green/Low category and Mr Q falls under Level 4/Orange/High

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