Findings from a pilot investigation of the effectiveness of a snoezelen room in residential care: should we be engaging with our residents more?

There is increasing literature on multisensory therapy or Snoezelen, with some evidence suggesting it promotes positive mood and reduces maladaptive behavior in people with dementia. We undertook a pilot evaluation of a Snoezelen room in residential care and compared effects with a condition in which staff took residents out to a garden. This study was therefore a comparison between a Snoezelen room containing prescriptive, expensive equipment and a more everyday existing location that, inevitably, also contained several sensory stimuli. The study was difficult to implement, with low numbers because some staff failed to attend sessions, and the frequent although rarely reported difficulty of introducing psychosocial interventions and doing research in residential care is one of the main stories of this study. No staff member used the room outside of the study, and we found no significant difference between Snoezelen and garden conditions. Results, although highly equivocal because of low numbers, raised the issue of the implementation of standard therapies in dementia care outpacing the evidence, possibly at the expense of less elaborate practices.