have OCD show a change in the striatum area of the brain when behavioral therapy and medication are given. Maybe with this new information on the cause of OCD, physicians may be able to treat it easier and with greater success. Commonality of OCD among the population of the United States does not seem substantial when compared to other illnesses. About 3.3 million people in the U.S. between the ages of 18-54 have OCD in a given year. (NIMH 2000.) This translates into roughly 2.3 percent of the population. Studies show that OCD affects women and men about equally. The ratio of men to women with OCD not being that significant in either direction to give it solely to one gender. This is unusual because most illnesses tend to favor one gender or the other. Typically OCD starts in early adolescence, but is written of by parents as abnormal or unusual behavior and the thought that the child will grow out of it. At least one-third of the cases of adult OCD began in childhood. This shows if caught soon enough and treated OCD might not have been a life long battle for some clients. In 1990 the U.S. paid out a total of 8.4 million dollars for treatment of clients with OCD. This was nearly 6 percent of the total mental health bill of 148 billion dollars. (NIMH 2000.)OCD doesn’t just affect the adult population either. Approximately one million children and adolescents in the United States suffer from OCD. (OCD Resource Center 2000.) This is about three to five children in an averaged size elementary school and about twenty teenagers in a large high school. In fact OCD is more prevalent than any other better know childhood ailments, this includes juvenile diabetes which affects 100,000 children per year. Some of the common obsessions in children and adolescents include fear of contamination, serious illness, fixation on lucky and unlucky numbers, fear of intruders, need for symmetry or exactness, and excessive doubt. Some ...
