Snoezelen: an approach to the provision of a leisure resource for people with profound and multiple handicaps

Abstract

This article outlines the history and development of the Snoezelen Centre at Whittington Hall Hospital in Chesterfield. Snoezelen originates from Holland. It is a leisure and recreation facility for people with profound and multiple handicaps. The concept involves creating high quality, purpose built environments which are used in a sensitive and caring way to provide pleasurable sensory stimulation and relaxation. The article describes the environments at Whittington Hall and the activities within them, together with details of the approach to staff development for Snoezelen workers. It also gives the background of a research project associated with the development of the facility, which seeks to evaluate the impact of Snoezelen on the daily lives of the people who use it.

État de la recherche clinique sur l’approche Snoezelen utilisée en milieu résidentiel spécialisé

“…Il s'agit de participants des deux sexes de différentes tranches d'âge : enfance, adolescence et âge adulte. La population choisit dans ces différentes études présente une déficience intellectuelle moyenne, sévère ou profonde avec des pathologies associées comme le syndrome autistique (Fagny, 2000 ;Germeau, 1998 ;Haggar & Hutchinson., 1991 ;Hutchinson & Haggar, 1994;Martin, 2003aMartin, , 2003b ou des troubles mentaux (ex. schizophrénie et autres troubles psychotiques) (Singh, Lancioni, Winton, Molina, Sage, Brown, & Groeneweg, 2004).…”

“…D'autres études plus critiques (Martin, Gaffan, & Williams, 1998;Terry & Hong, 1998) (Mount & Cavet, 1995) indiquent que l'avantage de Snoezelen résiderait exclusivement dans l'établissement de liens interactifs et relationnels plutôt que dans ses aspects multi-sensoriels. Haggar et Hutchinson (1991) stipulent la nature nondirective de Snoezelen. Ils apportent des résultats satisfaisants dans les domaines de la relaxation, le plaisir et la facilitation des rapports interpersonnels.…”

Ludic Content in Multisensory Stimulation Environments: An Exploratory Study about Practice in Portugal

“…However, the ludic potential embedded in multisensory environments is not directly documented in literature. Some authors use vocabulary with a semantic connection to the ludic grounds, such as “leisure” (Haggar and Hutchinson, ) or “recreation” (Cunningham et al, ), while describing the use of multisensory environment for relaxation, enjoyment and building personal relationships between client and therapist. Such conceptions actually pertain to the original Snoezelen concept.…”

Intellectual Disabilities

“…Several uncontrolled studies have suggested that persons with mental retardation might benefit from Snoezelen in some of the ways described above (Ashby et al, 1995;DeBunsen, 1994;Hagger & Hutchinson, 1991). However, all of these studies lacked control conditions, and used non-blind measurement or retrospective data collection.…”