“Elder Clowns” – how humor can benefit the demented
A study conducted by researchers from the New South Wales in Australia showed that humor reduced dementia patients’ agitated behavior — like wandering, screaming, aggression and repetitive behavior — by 20 percent, The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia reported.
In some senior centers, “humor therapists,” who are also known as “elder clowns” use jokes, stories, music and magic to “help stimulate memory and cognitive functioning,” according to a recent Lancet article. For example, an “elder clown” may ask someone with dementia to tell a story or give some life advice. The clown may also act foolishly or purposely misunderstand instructions so that the residents “have the opportunity to tell the clowns what to do,” the Lancet article said.
While hospital clowns mostly visit patients in their hospital rooms, elder clowns go to a place that seniors call home. This home may be the last one they will know. Unlike in the hospital setting, most residents are not bed-ridden and elder clowns treat the resident’s living space with respect. Elder clowns are not circus or birthday clowns who “play big”. They do not wear garish make-up, oversized clothes, and large floppy shoes in order to be identified as clowns. Since elder clowns often perform in a more personal and private space than a hospital ward, they must perform in softer, subtler ways than their circus clown counterparts. They rely on character-based idiosyncrasies to create humorous moments and relationships in their interactions with other people. They use techniques, such as telling jokes and stories, magic, music, and song, to help stimulate memory and cognitive functioning. This is important since many older people in residential care facilities experience cognitive difficulties either from the natural processes of ageing or more profoundly as a result of dementia.
The primary aim of the elder-clown visit is to engage with each resident on a personal level. Elder clowns also work with the health-care team. Before each shift they meet and interact with staff and receive notes about each resident’s psychosocial and medical condition. Elder clowns keep notes after the visit and share their observations with the health-care team. Elder clowns are improvisers who use staff information about a resident’s abilities, previous history, and interests combined with their own experience and intuition to create tailored interactions, or “plays”, with each resident. Strategies used by elder clowns include such approaches as asking residents stimulating questions to engage them in conversation. By asking the resident to tell them a story about a picture on their wall, or asking them if they have one piece of life advice, for example, elder clowns may encourage residents to take the lead in interactions. Often through the clown’s misunderstanding of instructions and “acting foolish”, residents have the opportunity to tell the clowns what to do.
source: Laughter Could Help Dementia Patients: Study , Laughing to Longevity – The work of Elder Clowns
