Try: Care recipients cr with obsessive-compulsive disorder ocd have persistent upsetting thoughts and use rituals to control the anxiety these thoughts produce most of the time the rituals end up controlling the cr for example if people are obsessed with germs or dirt they may develop a compulsion to wash their hands over and over again if they develop an obsession with intruders they may lock and re-lock their doors many times before going to bed being afraid of social embarrassment may prompt crs with ocd to comb their hair compulsively in front of a mirror-sometimes they get caught in the mirror and can’t move away from it performing such rituals is not pleasurable at best it produces temporary relief from the anxiety created by obsessive thoughts obsessive-compulsive disorder is typically an anxiety disorder but when an elderly cr suffers from it the condition could be related to alzheimer alzheimer’s disease or dementia healthy people also have rituals such as checking to see if the stove is off several times before leaving the house the difference is that crs with ocd perform their rituals even though doing so interferes with daily life and they find the repetition distressing although most adults with ocd recognize that what they are doing is senseless some may not realize that their behavior is out of the ordinary obsessive compulsive behaviors are those that interfere with daily life the cr is unable to control the rituals some common rituals are a need to repeatedly check things touch things especially in a particular sequence or count things ocd affects about 2 2 million american adults and the problem can be accompanied by eating disorders other anxiety disorders or depression it strikes men and women in roughly equal numbers information references agingcare com

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Categories: Behavior Challenging

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Keywords: Compulsion

*This information is listed as a Fact Sheet and is not explicitly medically licensed