This is already my second week of work in the Handimachal Unit, and already these few days have been rich in discoveries and prospectives...
I began my volunteer mission by working with a young man called Ramneek (20) who is disabled with hemiplegia caused by a stroke while he was playing cricket. Ramneek comes to the Unit every morning for his rehabilitation programme and tries his best to recover maximum functioning of his right limbs. The main difficulties he is facing nowadays are to open his right hand and to produce a full rotating movement with his arm, so we designed for him a new exercise taking the form of a game, more attractive to him, in order to complement his rehabilitation programme which is already quite dense.
Thanks to a multi-disciplinary programme and thanks to Ramneek’s regularity in performing his exercises, benefits should show up “after some time” (a very typical phrase in India!). Such results are of course crucial to Ramneek at this stage of his life…
I am also taking care of a very young girl called Sneha, who needs multi-sensorial stimulation.
After spending time with Sneha and assessing the degree and range of her deficiencies, I have come to the conclusion that the creation of a stimulation space such as a snoezelen room could probably be very beneficial to her as well as to so many children. I explained the concept to Kanica and Yuv Raj, and we decided to keep one small room at the back of the Handimachal Unit to organise this space, which is now under preparation. We began painting the room with bright and colourful designs and fitting colour light bulbs, in order to create an attractive space liable to stimulate children’s senses.
Snoezelen rooms are specially designed to deliver stimuli to various senses, using lighting effects, colour, sounds, music, scents, etc. The combination of different materials on a wall may be explored using tactile senses, and the floor may be adjusted to stimulate the sense of balance.
The term "snoezelen" is a neologism formed from the Dutch "snuffelen" (to seek out, to explore) and "doezelen" (to doze, to snooze). This concept addresses both sensory exploration and relaxation and pleasure, which are essential to children’s development.
More to come soon…
Linda Lefranc, 30 May 2010
