Beginnings

Tbe term "Diogenes Syndrome" was first used to describe the cluster of behaviors also known as "senior squalor" in 1975, in an article written for the journal Lancet by Clark, Mankikar and Gray. These and other researchers also observe that the syndrome not confined to the elderly; younger people turn up with it too. The literature posits a profile for the Diogenes sufferer: typically aloof, domineering, inflexible, with limited or nonexistent social support.
Of the medical and social service people I've encountered in my own quest to figure this all out, only one, a hospital social worker, was actually familiar with the term Diogenes Syndrome. A clinical psychiatrist, three APS workers, a social worker with the local Council on Aging, a hospital charge nurse and a nursing social worker did not, although they immediately recognized it once they heard the symptoms.