Therapy brush – a kind of brush developed specifically for sensory stimulation. It is used by firmly but gently brushing the bristles up and down a person’s limbs on their bare skin. NOT  to be used on the face, face, chest, stomach, or the inside of a person’s thighs.

Porcupine balls – These spikey balls are also sometimes called massage or acupressure balls. The spikes create a pleasant sensation of kneading deep into muscle tissue. Rolling these balls along the body can be calming and relaxing while simultaneously stimulating nerves, improving circulation, and improving proprioception. One way to use this ball is to roll it around a person’s body, avoiding sensitive areas and focusing on specific muscle groups, while instructing the person being massages to focus on the location of the ball on their body.

Soft Foam Stress Balls – These squishy foam balls often come in a variety of different shapes, colors, and characters and give way to pressure easily on the surface and offer more resistance when compressed. Most people consider this feeling to be satisfying and relaxing while also providing low resistance exercising of joint and hand movement.

Grip Strengthening Stress Balls – These stress balls are much firmer and provide a great deal of resistance, requiring a significant amount of effort to squeeze. Playing with these kinds of stress balls can improve hand strength and dexterity. That exercise may help some people to maintain motor skills and grip. Closer to onset of symptoms, this may help maintain a person’s precision movement and control in their hands and fingers.

Essential Oil roll-on sticks – Essential oil roll on sticks are used  for a variety of purposes such as stress reduction, headache relief, and improving mood. A person can buy empty roller sticks and fill them with a person’s own choice of essential oil or oil blends (there are plenty of blend recipes available online to suit specific needs). We recommend plastic roller bottles as opposed to glass for safety purposes and price. Roller sticks stimulate the senses of touch and smell. In addition to providing the benefits that specific oils claim, the sense of smell is highly impactful on memory recall and may help alleviate symptoms of memory loss for some time. It is important to only use hypoallergenic oils as some client might have allergies.

Putty – There are several different kinds and brands available like Crayola’s Silly Putty, Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty, and brands marketed specifically as therapy putty. Health benefits of playing with putty including stress reduction, increased hand strength and fine motor skills, better coordination, and flexibility. Playing with putty has even shown to stimulate the brain in ways that improve word and color recognition. There’s even scented putty which can incorporate some of the benefits of aromatherapy. It is also very useful as an anger management tool, which is helpful in the case of clients with HD since emotional regulation is also affected by the disease.

White noise machine – besides the conventional uses of relaxation and helping people fall and stay asleep longer, listening to white noise has shown in clinical trials to reduce agitation in people suffering from dementia. Those studies also found that listening to white noise may also improve daily independent functioning and cognitive abilities.

Weighted blankets  – Utilizing the therapeutic technique of Deep Pressure Stimulation, weighted blankets can provide benefits such as improved mood, sleep, social interactions, focus, distress tolerance, and communicativeness. They can also reduce anxiety, incidence of seizures, and hypersensitivity to touch.