Clinical characteristics of hoarding disorder in Japanese patients

Abstract

Previous studies have reported clinical characteristics of hoarding disorder (HD), such as early onset, a chronic course, familiality, high unmarried rate, and high rates of comorbidities. However, clinical research targeting Japanese HD patients has been very limited. As a result, there is a low recognition of HD in Japan, leading to insufficient evaluation and treatment of Japanese HD patients.The aim of the current study was to delineate the clinical characteristics of Japanese HD patients. Thirty HD patients, 20 obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, and 21 normal controls (NC) were targeted in this study.The HD group had a tendency toward higher familiality, earlier onset, and longer disease duration compared to the OCD group. In addition, the HD group showed a significantly higher unmarried rate than the NC group. The top two comorbidities in the HD group were major depressive disorder (56.7%) and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (26.7%). The HD group had significantly higher scores on hoarding rating scales and lower scores on the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale than the other two groups.The current study showed a clinical trend in Japanese HD patients similar to previous studies in various countries, suggesting that HD may be a universal disease with consistent clinical symptoms.

Abnormal white matter structure in hoarding disorder

“…There is adequate evidence from TBSS studies that patients with these psychiatric conditions also have microstructural abnormalities in WM (Aoki et al, 2018;Jenkins et al, 2016;Piras et al, 2021;Siehl et al, 2018;Wise et al, 2016). In particular, the participants in the HD group had a higher rate of comorbid ADHD (44%) than in previous studies (16.7-27.8%) (Frost et al, 2011;Kuwano et al, 2020;Levy et al, 2021;Stevens et al, 2020). This difference might reflect a degree of sampling bias arising from the small sample size.…”

Untitled

“…2 17 . The key element that differentiates between normal hoarding behavior and hoarding disorder as a clinical entity is that the latter results in the accumulation of a large number of possessions that covers and clutters the living areas of the house, obstructing their use and causing distress or impairment 14,28 . Collecting behavior tends to become pathological in those patients who show specific patterns of brain damage affecting the prefrontal areas of the brain, which mediate cognitive function, decision-making, attention, and emotions.…”