Abstract
Patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities (SMID) who require ongoing medical care to sustain their life often experience severe emotional and physical distress and require intervention to relieve this distress. In patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities with whom communication is extremely difficult, objective parameters must be established for the assessment of emotional changes. To investigate the usefulness of salivary amylase activity as an index of emotional changes, we examined the correlation between salivary amylase activity and "Snoezelen" therapy (therapeutic and educational activities) designed to produce eustress (pleasurable stimuli to reduce distress) in 10 patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities. We found that regardless of the severity of their disabilities, salivary amylase activity significantly decreased during Snoezelen therapy as compared to the activity before Snoezelen therapy. Our findings suggest that salivary amylase activity is useful as a noninvasive index of changes reflecting eustress in patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities. Furthermore, real-time measurement of amylase activity using a hand-held salivary amylase activity monitor with disposable test strips is useful for assessment of eustress in patients with severe motor and intellectual disabilities.
