What everyone needs to know

What is hoarding and hoarding disorder? -- What are the common features of hoarding? -- What are the neurocognitive features of hoarding? -- What is the impact of hoarding on sufferers, families, and communities? -- How serious is the hoarding problem? -- Why do people hoard? -- What treatments work best for hoarding and acquiring? -- How can family members and other methods help with hoarding? -- How can communities help with hoarding? -- What are the next steps to understand and treat hoarding?

"In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association determined that hoarding disorder (HD) is a diagnosable mental health condition. This disorder has been studied only in the past three decades, although information about this surprisingly common problem has been accumulating at a great rate in recent years. In fact, published papers about hoarding have increased from 3 during the first half of the 1990s to 319 in first half of the current decade (2010-2015). This increased rate of published research on hoarding has continued in the past few years. In Dr. Randy Frost and Dr. Tamara Hartl's seminal 1996 paper on the "compulsive hoarding" syndrome, the authors proposed an explanation as to why people hoarded objects in their homes. Remarkably, the information they provided and their explanation stand up well today, even after scores of studies have been conducted on the psychopathology and treatment of hoarding. No doubt this information will continue to be updated in the coming years, but it provides a sound basis for understanding this complex and very serious condition"--