Made by DATEXIS (Data Science and Text-based Information Systems) at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
Funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; Grant: 01MD19013D, Smart-MD Project, Digital Technologies
Another human health issue caused by animal hoarding is the risk of zoonotic diseases. Defined as "human diseases acquired from or transmitted to any other vertebrate animal", zoonotic diseases can often be lethal and in all cases constitute a serious public health concern. Examples of well-known zoonotic diseases include bubonic plague, influenza, and rabies. Common domesticated animals constitute a large portion of animals carrying zoonoses, and as a result, humans involved in animal hoarding situations are at particular risk of contracting disease. Zoonoses that may arise in hoarding situations—through vectors such as dog, cat, or rat bites—include rabies, salmonellosis, catscratch fever, hookworm, and ringworm. One zoonosis of special concern is toxoplasmosis, which can be transmitted to humans through cat feces or badly-prepared meat, and is known to cause severe birth defects or stillbirth in the case of infected pregnant women. The risk of zoonotic diseases is amplified by the possibility of community epidemics.
Animal hoarding is keeping a higher-than-usual number of animals as domestic pets without ability to properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability. Compulsive hoarding can be characterized as a symptom of mental disorder rather than deliberate cruelty towards animals. Hoarders are deeply attached to their pets and find it extremely difficult to let the pets go. They typically cannot comprehend that they are harming their pets by failing to provide them with proper care. Hoarders tend to believe that they provide the right amount of care for them. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals provides a "Hoarding Prevention Team", which works with hoarders to help them attain a manageable and healthy number of pets.
Digital hoarding (also known as e-hoarding) is excessive acquisition and reluctance to delete electronic material no longer valuable to the user. The behavior includes the mass storage of digital artifacts and the retainment of unnecessary or irrelevant electronic data. The term is increasingly common in pop culture, used to describe the habitual characteristics of compulsive hoarding, but in cyberspace. As with physical space in which excess items are described as "clutter" or "junk," excess digital media is often referred to as "digital clutter."
Digital hoarding stems from a variety of individual traits and habits, corporate conditions, and societal trends:
- Some individuals experience anxiety when faced with disposing of digital items, particularly if they fear losing something important.
- Many digital hoarders don't know how to organize their digital content or aren't in the habit of doing so, and they lack a methodology for determining which content is worth keeping.
- Keeping all of one's digital files requires less time and effort than evaluating and deleting them.
- Many businesses rely on email correspondence for decision-making and formal approvals, so employees are often careful to keep work emails in case they are needed to verify a decision later.
- Data storage devices are now so large and inexpensive that individuals and companies often do not feel the need to save data selectively.
- The widespread availability and rapid dissemination of open content on the Internet makes it easier for users to obtain digital media, which can accumulate more quickly than ever.
- Since digital media do not take up physical space, they're less likely to be perceived as clutter, and users can more easily forget the extent of what they own.
- Unlike many physical items, electronic content does not die or decay on its own; users must consciously choose to delete it.
Not only are there significant health risks associated with compulsive hoarding, but scientists are also trying to pinpoint how significant the interference is with occupational and social functioning in a hoarder's daily life. In a pool of compulsive hoarders, 42% found their behavior problematic to the 63% of their family and friends who saw the behavior as problematic. The findings suggest that individuals who hoard may exhibit impaired sensitivity to their own and others’ emotions, and conversely, relate the world around them by forming attachments to possessions rather than to people. Lower emotional intelligence among hoarding patients may also impact their ability to discard and organize their possessions. With such detrimental characteristics, comprehensive research has been performed to find a cure. Although this is ongoing research, most investigations have found that only a third of patients who hoard show an adequate response to these medications and therapeutic interventions.
With the modifications to the DSM, insurance coverage for treatments will change as well as special education programs.
Cyberphobia is a concept introduced in 1980, described as a specific phobia expressed as "an irrational fear of or aversion to computers" or more generally, a fear and/or inability to learn about new technologies.
Some forms of cyberphobia may range from the more passive forms of technophobia of those who are indifferent toward cyberspace to the responses of those who see digital technology as a medium of intrusive surveillance; more extreme responses may involve anti-technological paranoia expressed by social movements that radically oppose ‘technological society’ and ‘the New World Order’.
There are different ways that someone could experience cyberphobia. Teachers may experience a form of cyberphobia if they are forced to change their way of teaching. Another way people may experience cyberphobia is if they feel that they are incompetent, or that the new technology is not needed to advance in life, or that they feel that they lack skills for the new age of technology. Another way people may experience cyberphobia is if they feel like they are going to lose control, or the new technology will affect their status in life.
Some evidence based on brain lesion case studies also suggests that the anterior ventromedial prefrontal and cingulate cortices may be involved in abnormal hoarding behaviors, but sufferers of such injuries display less purposeful behavior than other individuals who hoard compulsively, thus making the involvement of these brain structures unclear. Other neuropsychological factors that have been found to be associated with individuals exhibiting hoarding behaviors include slower and more variable reaction times, increased impulsivity, and decreased spatial attention. A study comparing neural activity in hoarders, people with OCD, and a control group when deciding to throw possessions away found that when hoarders were trying to decide to throw away their own possessions, they had lower activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula regions of the brain. The study suggested this lower activity was related to "problems in identifying the emotional significance of a stimulus, generating appropriate emotional response, or regulating affective state during decision making." Hoarders had normal levels of activity in those regions when making decisions about possessions that did not belong to them.
Compulsive decluttering is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by an excessive desire to discard objects in one's home and living areas. Other terms for such behavior includes obsessive compulsive spartanism. The homes of compulsive declutterers are often empty. It is the antonym of compulsive hoarding.
Research shows that opposition to attitudinal change can gradually give way to acceptance with the passage of time. Attitudinal change towards acceptance may be a slow and even tedious experience for some teachers.
Digital phobic is an informal phrase used to describe a reluctance to become fully immersed in the digital age for being fearful of how it might negatively change or alter everyday life.
The fast-paced development of the digital world in the twenty-first century has contributed to the digital divide becoming a very real problem for a segment of the population for whom a lack of education of, interest in, or access to digital devices has left them excluded from the technological world and fearful of its growing omnipresence.
Digital phobic is part of a growing dictionary of digital vocabulary exploring the social impact of the technological age. The phrase considers the fears associated with technological evolution and change, and acknowledges the possibility of exclusion as a result of a rising reliance on technology in day-to-day life.
The consequences of oniomania, which may persist long after a spree, can be devastating, with marriages, long-term relationships, and jobs all feeling the strain. Further problems can include ruined credit history, theft or defalcation of money, defaulted loans, general financial trouble and in some cases bankruptcy or extreme debt, as well as anxiety and a sense of life spiraling out of control. The resulting stress can lead to physical health problems and ruined relationships, or even suicide.
Bibliomania can be a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder which involves the collecting or even hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged.
Bibliomania is not to be confused with bibliophilia, which is the usual love of books and is not considered a clinical psychological disorder.
Other abnormal behaviours involving books include book-eating (bibliophagy), compulsive book-stealing (bibliokleptomania), and book-burying (bibliotaphy).
Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an act persistently and repetitively without it necessarily leading to an actual reward or pleasure. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away. The act is usually a small, restricted and repetitive behavior, yet not disturbing in a pathological way. Compulsive behaviors are a need to reduce apprehension caused by internal feelings a person wants to abstain from or control. A major cause of the compulsive behaviors is said to be obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). "The main idea of compulsive behavior is that the likely excessive activity is not connected to the purpose to which it appears directed." Furthermore, there are many different types of compulsive behaviors including, shopping, hoarding, eating, gambling, trichotillomania and picking skin, checking, counting, washing, sex, and more. Also, there are cultural examples of compulsive behavior.
Diagnostic criteria for compulsive buying have been proposed: 1. Over-preoccupation with buying; 2. distress or impairment as a result of the activity; 3. compulsive buying is not limited to hypomanic or manic episodes.
While initially triggered by a perhaps mild need to feel special, the failure of compulsive shopping to actually meet such needs may lead to a vicious cycle of escalation, with sufferers experiencing the highs and lows associated with other addictions. The 'high' of the purchasing may be followed by a sense of disappointment, and of guilt, precipitating a further cycle of impulse buying. With the now addicted person increasingly feeling negative emotions like anger and stress, they may attempt to self-medicate through further purchases, followed again by regret or depression once they return home - leading to an urge for yet another spree.
As debt grows, the compulsive shopping may become a more secretive act. At the point where bought goods are hidden or destroyed, because the person concerned feels so ashamed of their addiction, the price of the addiction in mental, financial and emotional terms becomes even higher.
Some research suggests there is a genetic basis for greed. It is possible people who have a shorter version of the ruthlessness gene (AVPR1a) may behave more selfishly.
The cause of OCPD is unknown. However, it is believed to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Under the genetic theory, people with a form of the DRD3 gene will probably develop OCPD and depression, particularly if they are male. But genetic concomitants may lie dormant until triggered by events in the lives of those who are predisposed to OCPD. These events could include trauma faced during childhood, such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, or other psychological trauma. Under the environmental theory, OCPD is a learned behavior.
Compulsive talking goes beyond the bounds of what is considered to be a socially acceptable amount of talking. The two main factors in determining if someone is a compulsive talker are talking in a continuous manner, only stopping when the other person starts talking, and others perceiving their talking as a problem. Personality traits that have been positively linked to this compulsion include assertiveness, willingness to communicate, self-perceived communication competence, and neuroticism. Studies have shown that most people who are talkaholics are aware of the amount of talking they do, are unable to stop, and do not see it as a problem.
Greed is an inordinate or insatiable longing for unneeded excess, especially for excess wealth, status, power, or food.
As secular psychological concept, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs. The degree of inordinance is related to the inability to control the reformulation of "wants" once desired "needs" are eliminated. Erich Fromm described greed as "a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction." It is typically used to criticize those who seek excessive material wealth, although it may apply to the need to feel more excessively moral, social, or otherwise better than someone else.
The purpose for greed, and any actions associated with it, is possibly to deprive others of potential means (perhaps, of basic survival and comfort) or future opportunities accordingly, or to obstruct them therefrom, thus insidious and tyrannical or otherwise having negative connotation. Alternately, the purpose could be defense or counteraction from such dangerous, potential negotiation in matters of questionable agreeability. A consequence of greedy activity may be inability to sustain any of the costs or burdens associated with that which has been or is being accumulated, leading to a backfire or destruction, whether of self or more generally. So, the level of "inordinance" of greed pertains to the amount of vanity, malice or burden associated with it.
Lovesickness refers to an informal affliction that describes negative feelings associated with rejection, unrequited love or the absence of a loved one. It can manifest as physical as well as mental symptoms. It is not to be confused with the condition of being lovestruck, which refers to the physical and mental symptoms associated with falling in love. The term lovesickness is rarely used in medical or psychological fields.
Many people believe lovesickness was created as an explanation for longings, but it can be associated with depression and various mental health problems.
Complications of late Parkinson's disease may include a range of impulse-control disorders, including eating, buying, compulsive gambling and sexual behavior. One study found that 13.6% of Parkinson's patients exhibited at least one form of ICD. There is a significant co-occurrence of pathological gambling and personality disorder, and is suggested to be caused partly by their common "genetic vulnerability". The degree of heritability to ICD is similar to other psychiatric disorders including substance abuse disorder. There has also been found a genetic factor to the development of ICD just as there is for substance abuse disorder. The risk for subclinical PG in a population is accounted for by the risk of alcohol dependence by about 12-20% genetic and 3-8% environmental factors. There is a high rate of comorbidity between ADHD and other impulse-control disorders.
Frank Tallis, a researcher in the topic of love and lovesickness, suggests in his 2005 article that lovesickness occurs when one is “truly, madly, deeply” in love and should be taken more seriously by medical professionals. Similarly, health experts agree that lovesickness has been known to kill and the diagnosis process should be taken more seriously. Symptoms of lovesickness are usually misdiagnosed for various other diseases or mental health issues such as OCD, this is because love sickness is less commonly recognized as a mental health issue in itself even though lovesickness is an extremely common, widespread disease.
Tallis includes a list of common symptoms of love sickness:
- Mania - an abnormally elevated mood or inflated self-esteem
- Depression
- Nausea
- Tearfulness
- Insomnia, which may lead to fatigue
- Lack of concentration
- Loss of appetite or overeating
- Hopelessness and/or helplessness
- Stress - high blood pressure, pain in chest and heart, acute insomnia; sometimes brought on by a "crush"
- Obsessive-Compulsive disorder - Preoccupation and hoarding valueless but superstitiously resonant items
- Psychologically created physical symptoms, such as upset stomach, change in appetite, insomnia, dizziness, and confusion
- Chronic neck pain, body tremors, intrusive thoughts, frequent flashbacks.
- Rapid mood swings
According to Tallis, many symptoms of being lovesick can be categorized under the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases). Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (OCD) is a symptom of lovesickness because it includes a preoccupation, this would include constantly checking one's cellphone, Facebook, the hoarding of valueless items, etc. A further study conducted by Italian Psychiatrist Donatella Marazitti found that when people fall in love their estimated serotonin levels drop to levels found in patients with OCD, this level is significantly lower than that of an average or healthy person.
Kleptomania is characterized by an impulsive urge to steal purely for the sake of gratification.
In the U.S. the presence of kleptomania is unknown but has been estimated at 6 per 1000 individuals. Kleptomania is also thought to be the cause of 5% of annual shoplifting in the U.S. If true, 100,000 arrests are made in the U.S. annually due to kleptomaniac behavior.
Quality of life is reduced across all domains in OCD. While psychological or pharmacological treatment can lead to a reduction of OCD symptoms and an increase in QoL, symptoms may persist at moderate levels even following adequate treatment courses, and completely symptom-free periods are uncommon. In pediatric OCD, around 40% still have the disorder in adulthood, and around 40% qualify for remission.
Individuals suffering from Diogenes syndrome generally display signs of collectionism, hoarding, or compulsive disorder. Individuals who have suffered damage to the brain, particularly the frontal lobe, may be at more risk to developing the syndrome. The frontal lobes are of particular interest, because they are known to be involved in higher order cognitive processes, such as reasoning, decision-making and conflict monitoring.
Diogenes Syndrome tends to occur among the elderly. The behavioural patterns that is usually reflected by those living with this disorder are suffering from significant functional problem that is correlated with morbidity and mortality.