Assessment of stimulus preferences in multisensory environment therapy for older people with dementia

Assessment is paramount in the process of selecting appropriate treatment media. This paper presents an overview of suitable assessment procedures that may be used with older people with dementia in order to formulate a multisensory environment therapy programme. Primarily, current literature is explored, in terms of both the assessment procedures used prior to using the multisensory environment and the research outcomes. Secondly, an overview is given of two successful assessment procedures used, which integrate applied behaviour analysis and developmental approaches. This will provide the therapist with an assessment framework to determine the sensory preferences of older people with dementia, who may benefit from the multisensory environment.