The "litter hoarding syndrome": Objective

The "litter hoarding syndrome" is described only occasionally during the pa st decades. It seems to be rather unknown in the psychiatric literature. In the course of the syndrome the patients gather more and more litter in the ir homes until it becomes unhabitable. Physicians and social psychiatric se rvices are often confronted with this manifestation of a psychiatric illnes s. Methods: Because of the dramatic development, the extent and the specifi c circumstances this paper reports case of a young female patient with the litter hoarding syndrome. Results: The term "litter hoarding syndrome" was first coined by Dettmering [3] during a lecture on 25.1.1984 in the Psychia tric Clinic of the Eppendorf University Hospital in Hamburg. In 1985 Kloste rkotter et al. [7] described the "diogenes syndrome" which offered some nos ological similarities. With the exception of this publications an the PhD t hesis by Pastenaci [11] only a few reports have been published during the l ast 28 years throughout the world and no epidemiological data about the syn drome can be found. Conclusion: Based on this case some ideas about differe ntial diagnosis and syndrome classification shall be presented.