Sound Therapy

A new sensory environment designed to engage and entertain individuals with special needs and profound disabilities is set to open in Hereford on the 17th of this month.

Registered charity Aspire have teamed up with the Music Gym Ltd to produce a mobile sensory environment set to provide meaningful activities for individuals with special needs throughout Herefordshire. Equipment and training have already been supplied and the facility will be open throughout the summer.

Continually adapting to the ever shifting winds of government policy over the last 30 years, Aspire are committed to enabling those they work with to live their lives as independently as possible, as a part of their local community. Always seeking the best for those they care for, they have found the ideal partner for this project in the Music Gym Ltd, who draw upon their years of experience to provide advice, ideas and consultation, helping those they work with to make the most of increasingly limited budgets and to establish sensory environments that foster a sense of adventure and exploration in all who use them.

A Music Gym was chosen rather than a traditional, static sensory room, as it enables Aspire to take the facility to the service users rather than have them travelling to a central location (an important consideration as residents in care homes look set to lose their mobility allowance). As the name implies the Music Gym will bring health benefits too, turning passive observers into active participants as nothing happens in the Gym without the users interacting with the equipment.

The sensory equipment provided by the Music Gym Ltd includes interactive inflatables such as a musical bouncy castle and the NHS Award winning Decodamaze, PC’s to control the equipment, projectors to provide atmospheric lighting and effects and active camera technology that converts movement into sound and images. All the equipment has been designed to be easily transported and flexible enough to adapt to whatever purpose Aspire may set it in the future.

Speaking at the end of their final training session Tom Smurthwaite of the Music Gym Ltd said:
“At the end of our 5 days of training I left exhausted, yet inspired. I have no doubt that the Aspire Music Gym team will soon be making a huge difference to the lives of vulnerable children and adults of Hereford!”

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Boiler Plate:
A Music Gym is more than a sensory room, using similar equipment – but with an emphasis on doing. Sound and images are triggered and controlled by movement, developing the relationship between the member and their supporter through fun and interaction. The combination of technology and physical activity allows users to express themselves however they choose and provides skills that can be transferred to solving problems at home, in communication and day to day life.

The Music Gym Ltd. doesn’t sell equipment, instead, they:

• · design interactive spaces to fit anything from a single room to a sports hall
• · offer training and consultation to individuals and organisations
• · develop cost-effective ways of using new technology

Notes to editors:

• An online press pack is available at : http://www.soundtherapy.org.uk/279/279/ containing high quality pictures, links to the afore mentioned organisations, relevant facts and coverage

For more information please contact: Matthew Saunders