Clutter & disorganisation crisis looming for brain-damaged COVID-19 patients?

There's potentially some good news on its way for experienced Professional Organisers and Professional Hoarding Practitioners who work with people with complex needs - we're likely to be even more in demand as a result of COVID-19.

According to an article in The Guardian on 8th July 2020, UK neurologists have published details of mildly affected or recovering Covid-19 patients having serious or potentially fatal brain conditions.

The cases (published in the journal Brain) support a paper recently published in The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (by an American team of leading neurological experts), which says that some former COVID-19 patients may go on to develop cognitive decline, attention deficit, brain fog, or Alzheimer's disease.  

And that of course means they may (for example):

• Be left with degenerative COVID-19 related physical health problems that affect them for the rest of their lives
• End up with PTSD caused by the trauma of having had COVID-19, as well as having to adjust to having physical anxiety, depression or stress-related illness that they may not have had before
• Find it difficult to maintain their pre-COVID-19 career/employment status, level of income and lifestyle
• End up finding themselves reliant on the benefits system to be able to pay their bills - assuming there is an appropriate welfare system in place where they live of course...
• Need to downsize or request council accommodation if their situation becomes too dire (they may even have to relocate to other areas if there's insufficient suitable accommodation available in their area.
  
• Lose some of their Executive Functioning (EF) - the daily skills of life that enable us to carry out what "neurotypicals" take for granted, such as:
• the ability to remember were they put things; 
• arrive at appointments on time (assuming they remembered to write the appointment in their diary in the first place - assuming they could even find their diary or remembered to look in their diary); 
• organise their homes (eg. create and maintain effective filing systems for paperwork, photos, emails, etc; 
• manage their affairs (eg. pay bills on time, arrange repairs to be carried out to fix broken heating, etc)
• maintain a clean, safe, hygienic and clutter-free living environment

Not that these are good things of course - absolutely not - far from it!  

Life-changing experiences like these can be frustrating, exhausting, depressing, and time-consuming to address.  Especially for individuals who were previously physically active, focussed on career development and fiercely independent.  

And then there's the friends and families who end up becoming carers to them post-COVID.

Without appropriate and timely support, the health and wellbeing of people affected by these kinds of difficulties can rapidly deteriorate, and the consequences can be disastrous.

It's only in the last few years that some local authorities (especially those that have received specialist training from organisations such as Hoarding Disorders UK CIC, Clouds End CIC and Rainbow Red) have begun to understand that issues related to clutter, disorganisation, self-neglect and hoarding behaviours are:

• Very rarely lifestyle choices
• Until COVID-19, the chances are that that individuals experiencing these issues had underlying neurological and/or mental health conditions (often undiagnosed).  Post-COVID-19, the difficulties could be related to that issues caused by the Coronavirus, on top of existing problems.
• Likely to be physical representations of the chaos and overwhelm in a person's life
• Often made worse by sending in a clearance/cleaning firm, instead of someone who offers a person-centred service

So, why does this mean there's potentially a clutter and disorganisation crisis looming?

Because the bad news is that:

1. there may be no money to pay for these essential services

2. There aren't enough of us with sufficient skills and experience of working with people with complex needs to meet demand.  And those of us who do have been inundated with calls since lockdown started - we simply can't keep up (so apologies to all those who we've not yet had a chance to contact).

Health and social care services are likely to be overwhelmed with requests for support from the likes of professionals such as Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, support workers, mental health specialists and neurological specialists - all collaborating with Professional Organisers and Professional Hoarding Practitioners - empowering individuals to remain independent for as long as possible.

We predict there could be (for example):

• inadequate budgeting and training of NHS and local authority personnel to provide specialist person-centred practical support
• Many people who lose their job due to the deterioration in their health, and who turn to already over-stretched health and social care and/or benefits systems to pay for support
• enormous competition for already very limited health and social care budgets 
• an increase in demand for council accommodation
• an increase in the number of social workers required to deal with increased case-loads
• an increase in safety issues in the home due to self-neglect, fires; slips, trips and falls; infestations, etc. 
• an increase in the number of vulnerable people being targeted by unscrupulous scammers and and becoming victims of of cuckooing (when people are unwell they are less able to maintain their properties in which drug dealers take over the home of a vulnerable person in order to use it as a base for county lines drug trafficking. 

All of which could continue for many years to come.

Still, it's reassuring to know that decluttering and organising specialists are likely to at last become an integral part of multi-agency responses and interventions.  Better late than never.

My hope is that by re-training people who have struggled with organising issues the past - and either attended hoarding or clutter support groups or worked with professional practitioners (or both) to develop sustainable coping strategies that  brings order to their lives - we'll end up with a new generation of practitioners as passionate as we are about giving something back to clients who were once like them.

So, if you'd like to know more about attending training to become a Professional Hoarding Practitioner, please please please get in touch.  

Because without your empathy, patience, and ability to motivate, empower and coach people to believe in their ability to take control of their paperwork and their homes, some people won't be able to sort their way out of their mess - which wasn't their fault in the first place....

+++++

To find a Professional Organiser in the UK, check out The Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers (APDO) website - www.apdo.co.uk

Families need support too

Client testimonials are always very much appreciated, and this one 

- from a lovely lady who contacted me for advice because she was concerned about her mother - absolutely made my day!

"I contacted Cherry during lock down due to my mother being taken extremely unwell. We received a phone call from the paramedic who attended to my mother, who had a very frank conversation as to how bad our mum's home was. He stated that in the future they may not be able to attend to her address due the appalling house condition. Mum's prospects at this time was very uncertain and even if she was to survive, then she couldn't return home due to her health and the home conditions.  

What the paramedic wasn't aware of was the years/ decades of battling we have had to try to get her to resolve the issue. It came to a point where her adult children had to choose not to go to her house because it was so upsetting. It was not through not trying, I have lost count how many times we have been to her house to try help get it into a habitable state or encouraged her to access service to support her in doing so, but due to her such poor self esteem, confidence and not wanting to lose any of her possessions this just wasn't achievable.  This life changing event forced our hand to face up to the situation and get professional help. This is where Cherry came into our lives.....

 

I called Cherry in March, as a stuttering, bumbling mess on the phone. Feeling helpless, bewildered, hopeless and most of all embarrassed. Cherry was absolutely amazing, she reassured, listened, empathised, had a complete understanding and most importantly made me feel supported and there could be a way forward. Cherry wasn't able to take on our mum as a client but she could hear my desperation and  promised she would look into it to see if she could find another professional to support her. Cherry supported myself and my sister via phone calls and emails. My sister suffers anxiety and had baby twins to contend with. I have a young family and working full time in a very stressful and demanding job. Cherry was completely understanding and worked around us. 

 

Cherry was able to connect us to Simon who is also a professional de-clutter and hoarder supporter. We managed to persuade our mum to meet Cherry and Simon via a video link. They offered her understanding, encouragement and strategies to encourage her to start making small steps forward. Sadly our mum didn't agree to work with Simon, we believe this because she has had a difficult life which she had little control and she wants to be in charge of her decisions now. However from their conversation it has spurred our mum on to start making the changes she so desperately needs to make. When she was fitter enough, she returned home and has started to clear the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, fingers crossed she can continue.

 

 I truly wish she had made the better choice of working with Simon. Myself and my brother and sister believe that this would have changed her life as it's not a straight cut solution of clearing a house, she would absolutely have benefited from the confidence and self esteem that would have come from Simon and Cherry's support. 

 

My family wants to whole heartily thank Cherry and Simon for there support through one of the toughest times". 

 Which just goes to show, it's not about the stuff, 

it's always about the people!

Finally, I must say a big thank you to my APDO colleague Simon Wigzell of 

Let's Get It Sorted for the calm and reassuring way he supported the family 

- and me!