Snoezelen, or controlled multisensory stimulation, was first introduced in Israel in 1993. This paper presents a new concept of working with the whole family in the Snoezelen room with the participation of a social worker. The purpose was to facilitate family encounters with the child, to enable parents and siblings to become better acquainted with the resident through his/her strengths and special abilities, to encourage parental involvement in the care, to encourage increased visits, to improve quality of life (QOL) for the resident, and to reinforce a better relationship between resident, family, and home. Sessions were divided into two major parts. The first segment (duration 20-40 min) was free activity and the second was more structured (duration 15-30 min). Case stories are presented to illustrate the positive effects of this approach. Snoezelen can be used with the entire family with the participation of a social worker and can add new dimensions to communication.KEYWORDS: mental retardation, developmental disability, intellectual disability, human development, public health, Snoezelen, Israel DOMAINS: child health and human development, medical care, physical therapy, behavioral psychology, clinical psychology, psychiatry, nursing
INTRODUCTIONThe concept of "Snoezelen", or controlled multisensory stimulation, was introduced by staff working at two Dutch centers for persons with intellectual disability (ID) in the 1970s [1,2]. The word "Snoezelen" is a combination of two Dutch words: snuffelen (the sniffing of a dog) and doezelen meaning to slumber, relax, or doze [1,2]. Snoezelen refers to a specially equipped room(s) where the nature, quantity, arrangement, and intensity of stimulation is controlled [2] with an environment designed to stimulate the senses by means of light, sound, touch, smell, and taste [3].*Corresponding author. ©2004 with author.500 Nasser et al.: Snoezelen in Israel TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (2004) 4, 500-506 The founders of the concept[1] used the method as a leisure or relaxation activity without therapeutic elements or supervision, and initially resisted any notion of research in the fear that it would become more therapeutic, objective, and product oriented [4]. Over time though, this has changed and a recent review [4] identified 21 research studies, where 14 studies involved persons with ID and 7 studies involved people with dementia. Of these studies, 14 reported positive effects within the Snoezelen room session, 4 showed positive postsession effects, and 2 had long-term effects and one was inconclusive.Snoezelen was first introduced in Israel within a day-treatment center for children with ID in 1993 [2,5] and the first Snoezelen room within the Division for Mental Retardation (DMR) was established at one of the residential care centers in 1995. Today in Israel, this method is used in more than 25 residential care centers and 3 community settings for persons with ID. Since the year 2000, a part-time physiotherapist has been employed to supervise the treatment and deve...