Sensory therapy has been termed to be a kind of therapy which has been developed exclusively for the disabled and elderly. There are few such people who have one or couple of their senses, which are under or over sensitive towards stimulation. It can cause some kind of difficulties with their day to day living. Most often, people having autism could experience over-stimulation of more than one sense that could make life to become quite difficult and also overwhelming.
About Sensory Therapy
This type of therapy could assist people to become much more accustomed to their senses that in turn can assist them to perform regular tasks with great ease. Furthermore, it has been categorized by senses given below:
- Gustatory (sense involving taste)
- Tactile (sense involving touch)
- Auditory (sense involving hearing)
- Visual (sense involving eyesight)
- Olfactory (sense involving smell)
Sensory therapy is also known to deal with the following:
- Balance: The individual’s sense of balance is known to be provided by brain and the inner ear.
- Body awareness: The individual’s sense of physical self-awareness
For Elderly People
The elderly generally have been noticed to experience ‘hypo-sensitivity’, which effectively means that they could have trouble seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling, because of dulling of the senses due to age. Hence, the elderly do require the latest and sophisticated sensory therapy products which can exercise or stimulate their senses.
For People having Autism
According to studies and researches on individuals having autism, it has been seen that people who are autistic tend to have different types of perceptions with regards to their senses, when compared to those who are not found to be autistic and are normal. Hence, people who are confirmed to be autistic might experience ‘hyper-sensitivity’ that could make day to day experiences somewhat challenging and also unpleasant.
This is where sensory therapy could come to save such people, to help them to learn reacting towards their senses much more naturally through appropriate processing and understanding with regards to information passed to the senses, which are in turn fed to their brain.
Within the Care Home
It is a fact that verbal communication, especially for majority of the elderly residents could be a tough task and also lead them towards becoming withdrawn from the society and social activities. Sensory activities can prove to be a wonderful way towards making an effort to engage with others, who can help to have communication routes to be opened up. The proven and effective sensory products could be useful for people, who may be nursed in bed, showing very little response towards day to day stimulus.
It has also been noticed that Alzheimer patients as well as others having various dementia types are said to show decreased agitation, restlessness and a need to improve their sleeping patterns. Such symptoms are termed to be quite common in several dementia forms and more specifically in people affected by Alzheimer’s. Therefore, sensory stimulation could translate as enhance life quality for patients and the caregiver also.