Welcome to PartnerPac
Hello, and welcome to PartnerPac. My name is Hilary Wainer and together with residents and loved ones, carers and family members, we have created PartnerPac – a sensory communication resource using Touch and Music. PartnerPac has grown out of TACPAC, which is now well established in educational settings. Members of our TACPAC community, who saw the benefits sensory communication, asked us to create a resource for their loved ones living with dementia.
We have run pilot studies in various care homes, and I wish to thank in particular those care homes in Oxfordshire who helped us so much with their comments and suggestions while this resource was being created.
Good luck!
Hilary Wainer TACPAC founder
Partner Pac
It is well known that Music is a language understood by everyone, without the need to understand vocabulary or grammar. It is well known that Touch is a language understood by everyone, without the need for analysis or cognition. Both these sensory languages are used by our two partners in PartnePac to facilitate relaxation, sensitivity, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose. The half hour PartnerPac session aims to result in both partners exchanging ideas, wishes, respect and choices resulting in a satisfying and meaningful connection.
How Does Partner Pac Work?
The languages of Music and Touch have strict structures, as in all languages. The exact matching of these structures gives our receivers one clear sensory message. Your skill is in the alignment of these two language structures.
Givers and Receivers
When two people communicate, one gives information and one receives that information. Then the roles are reversed, and the receiver becomes the giver. It is a communication partnership – hence – PartnerPac.
Body Patterning
We can hear the structure of the music, by listening to the basic beat. Each beat needs to match the physical touch, so that the receiver gets one sensory message they can rely on. The touch and the music are Aligned.
Focus on the two Sensory Languages
Both music and touch are languages, by passing cognition. No one had to teach us these languages, we were all born with a sense of them. The combination of these two languages highly compatible and productive. When they are delivered in alignment, the receiver gets one sensory message, with no other distractions.
Principals of Sensory Alignment
All our information comes through our limbic system. That’s a lot of information to go through the sorting process. If this process is impaired in any way, we need a clear sensory message so that what our receiver hears and feels is the same, matched, with no other interference. The beat of the music and the touch are matched exactly. This matching we call Sensory Alignment.
Partner Pac Research
This presentation was created for TACPAC by Zaiba Patel, s doctoral student at the University of Oxford.