One Caregiver v. One Stuffed Condo. - NYTimes.com

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By PAULA SPAN

I’m enjoying a blog called The Downsize Challenge, whose author posts weekly about her trials and triumphs as she culls through a lifetime’s possessions crammed into her grandfather’s two-bedroom Florida condo.

The Downsize Challenge has raised questions that plague all of us (what do all those keys unlock, anyway?) and fostered a lively competition to see which reader had the oldest expiration date on something in the medicine cabinet (a jar of Vaseline from 1974 took the prize).

It also carries a not-so-subtle message. “I was encouraging other members of my family not to wait 20 years to deal with this stuff, because I don’t want to have to do it again,” said the blog’s author, Julie Lanoie.
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More Help for Hoarding - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

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By PAULA SPAN

Thanks to reality programming and cable television, to “Hoarders” on A&E and to “Hoarding: Buried Alive” on TLC, more people are probably aware of compulsive hoarding as a disorder than ever before. (And The New Old Age can probably take a bow, too.)

But watching other families’ horror stories can only take you so far. In April the International O.C.D. Foundation launched a new online hoarding resource to provide information and links to treatment professionals.

As the site itself notes, treatment for hoarding remains something of a shot in the dark. Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy, used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, appear considerably less successful for hoarding, and the specialized therapy that’s helped some younger hoarders isn’t as effective for older adults. It’s not even clear if compulsive hoarding is a variant of O.C.D. or something different.

Still, the new online center offers a good first step for families struggling to understand this sometimes baffling and often heartbreaking behavior.
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Help for Hoarding - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

By PAULA SPAN

The volume of comments from readers trying to cope with elders who hoard everything from newspapers to yogurt containers to cats — and from readers struggling with their own hoarding tendencies — has come as something of a surprise to me.

Clearly, more people suffer from this disorder than outsiders might guess, and the stories people have shared have been both fascinating and heartbreaking.

I just wish I had more definitive advice to pass along. “We’re still trying to figure this out,” admitted Catherine Ayers, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego and a leading researcher on hoarding.

Some commenters have suggested books and programs they’ve found helpful, and the O.C.D. Foundation’s compulsive hoarding Web site offers both general information and guidance on treatment. Therapists who specialize in obsessive-compulsive disorder probably represent the best bet for hoarders for now, Dr. Ayers said — though it’s unclear whether compulsive hoarding is a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But the current treatment of choice, a combination of cognitive behavior therapy and the antidepressant drugs called S.S.R.I.’s, has limitations. “It works well for folks in midlife,” Dr. Ayers said. “For older people, we suspect some cognitive changes interfere. Some people respond, but it may not work as well.”

Dr. Ayers is mounting a larger treatment study for older adults with hoarding problems (underwritten by the O.C.D. Foundation) and has invited families willing to participate in it to contact her directly:
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When It Isn’t Just Clutter Anymore - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

By PAULA SPAN

She was a retired college professor, living alone in a New York apartment that had become unmanageable. When she called Bergfeld’s Estate Clearance Service for help, Kristin Bergfeld had trouble entering the apartment; the professor had to move objects out of the way simply to open her front door.

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