Snoezelen rooms enhance lives of dementia patients

Sensory stimulation 

For people who have Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia, overstimulating their senses—touch, sound, smell, taste, and sight—can help them reconnect with their environment.

What is Snoezelen?
Snoezelen is an alternative treatment approach in which people who have Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia are offered opportunities to become more aware of their surroundings. This allows them to react better to their environment and to the people who are part of it, and to experience inner peace and contentment.

The theory is that overstimulation of the senses can help people who find it difficult to connect with their world. Snoezelen is painless and, in many cases, has been getting positive results in people who have Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, as well as in children who have autism.
 

Sensory stimulation 

History of Snoezelen
In the 1970s, a psychologist named Ad Verheual observed how his disabled patients reacted and interacted with their surroundings, and found that introducing them to the five senses in a focused way helped to both calm and activate them.

Verheual shared his findings with a colleague, Jan Hulsegge, and they published a book called “Snoezelen,” named for a combined Dutch word that means “seek out” (“snuffelen”) and “relax” (“doezelen”). From this humble start, the Snoezelen concept was born, and today multi-sensory rooms known as Snoezelen Sensory Rooms are used in a variety of settings, including nursing homes and facilities that treat autism.

Snoezelen sensory rooms
A Snoezelen sensory room is designed to challenge the senses of the participants in a nonthreatening way and to encourage them to interact with it. This can be achieved by providing huge comfortable pillows, playing soothing background (e.g., cascading water, birds singing, wind through trees), placing bowls of berries in the room, offering an interactive panel where patients can project colored lights onto a blank wall, hanging colorful and touchable mobiles from the ceiling, and filtering in pleasant smells such as lavender and cinnamon.
 

 

In Phoenix, Arizona, the Arizona State Veteran’s Home (ASVH) is the first Snoezelen room in the state to offer this service to fight dementia. According toASVH Recreation Therapist Dannis Murphy, the participants experience better mobility and improved communication abilities, and improved affect.

More about Snoezelen
Learn more about the philosophy and workings of Snoezelen at Flaghouse and from the results of a study conducted at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, in which researchers found that the Snoezelen method reduced agitation and apathy and improved the activities of people who had moderate to severe dementia.

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