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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Laughter therapy modulates the parameters of renin-angiotensin system in patients with type 2 diabetes.

The effect of laughter therapy on the plasma levels of renin, angiotensinogen, and prorenin was investigated in patients with type 2 diabetes. In the diabetic patients, the mean plasma renin concentrations were 24.6+/-12.1 ng/ml/h in the first observation (at the beginning of laughter therapy), 8.2+/-3.4 ng/ml/h in the second observation (three months after the beginning of laughter therapy) and 7.7+/-1.7 ng/ml/h in the third observation (six months after the beginning of laughter therapy). The mean plasma angiotensinogen concentrations in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd observations were 0.19+/-0.08, 0.47+/-0.12, 0.42+/-0.14 microg/ml, respectively. The mean plasma prorenin concentrations in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd observations during the laughter therapy were 195.1+/-66.2, 193.4+/-88.2 and 170.7+/-52.5 pg/ml, respectively. Plasma renin concentrations were significantly decreased (p<0.05) by the therapy. Subnormal concentrations of plasma angiotensinogen were found in the 1st observation and increased significantly (p<0.05) to the normal range after the therapy. Plasma prorenin concentration only slightly changed during the laughter therapy. Other biochemical parameters remained unchanged during the laughter therapy. These results indicated that a long-term laughter therapy changed the plasma components of renin-angiotensin system in patients with diabetes. Thus, laughter therapy can be used as non-pharmacological treatment for the prevention of diabetic microvascular complications.

Angiotensinogen↗
PubMed1995

Humour and laughter therapy.

There is much anecdotal 'evidence' from nurses and patients to support humour and laughter as therapy. However, there is little research to support specific humour or laughter interventions as beneficial in the short or long term in the clinical environment. Humour and laughter remain potentially exciting and innovative tools for nursing therapy. They have a number of effects which could prove beneficial for many different nursing and medical diagnoses and appear to have the additional advantage of being adaptable to most situations. More clinical evaluation of humour and laughter therapy is required before its appropriate use can be defined.

Holistic Nursing↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Laughter therapy for patients with cancer.

Humor is an important part of life. Care should be taken to ensure that humor persists even during the bleakest times for patients, families, and medical personnel. Laughter eases the mind, defuses tension among people, and has positive physiologic effects on patients. Facilitated nursing intervention with humor helps to inject this important facet of life into difficult scenes. One successful approach to introducing humor into the hospital setting is a hall-roving "Laugh Mobile." Its humorous novelties, books, and films help divert the attention of suffering patients to lighter thoughts.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

A chuckle a day keeps the doctor away: therapeutic humor and laughter.

There are several beneficial efforts attributed to humor and laughter, including improved immune function, increased pain tolerance, and decreased stress response. Humor therapy, laughter therapy, laughter meditation,and laughter clubs all have unique implications as group programs and as self-management techniques. For practitioners to implement credible programs and effectively teach self-management techniques, further empirical research on the physical, psychosocial, debonafide, and the placebo effects of humor and laughter needs to be conducted.

Health Status↗
PubMed1993

Development of inpatient oncology educational and support programs.

Support programs are needed to help patients manage the overwhelming emotions they experience when diagnosed and treated for cancer. Although many cancer support groups exist, most programs are designed for outpatients. Support groups for hospitalized patients and their families are an excellent way to provide greatly needed education and support to those who otherwise might not be able or willing to attend outpatient programs. Inpatient programs also offer the opportunity to provide support to people at the onset of diagnosis and treatment--a time when these services are particularly needed. This paper describes special considerations regarding the establishment of inpatient educational and support programs. The evolution of the Oncology Health Management Program of the Bay Pines VA Medical Center in Bay Pines, FL, also is presented. This multidisciplinary program for inpatients includes classes in spiritual support, family support, patient support, symptom management, stress management, and laughter therapy. Evaluation of the program revealed that classes that related symptom management were most useful and that laughter therapy and emotional support were reported to be highly beneficial as well. Nursing staff also gained from their participation in leading the program and expressed greater self-awareness and self-esteem. This has resulted in improved job satisfaction and staff retention as well as in more sensitive and compassionate delivery of patient care. These findings show that providing inpatient educational and support programs is an effective means of meeting the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of patients with cancer and their families.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Frequency of use of complementary and alternative medicine in women with breast cancer.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To estimate the frequency of use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies among women diagnosed with breast cancer and to identify demographic and clinical factors associated with CAM use in these patients. DESIGN: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey. SAMPLE: A convenience sample of 105 predominantly Caucasian women (mean age = 59 years) with a diagnosis of breast cancer was recruited from the Tampa Bay area and a rural midwestern area. METHODS: Utilizing the "Use of Complementary Therapies Survey," frequency of CAM use was calculated for 33 individual therapies listed on the survey and among three survey-defined subscales of CAM therapies (i.e., diet and nutritional supplements, stress-reducing techniques, and traditional and ethnic medicines). MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: Use of CAM therapies and types of treatment in women with breast cancer. FINDINGS: Among diet and nutritional supplements, 64% of all participants reported regular use of vitamins and minerals and 33% regularly used antioxidants, herbs, and health foods. Among stress-reducing techniques, 49% of all participants regularly used prayer and spiritual healing, followed by support groups (37%) and humor or laughter therapy (21%). Traditional and ethnic medicine therapies rarely were used with the exception of massage, which 27% of all participants used at least once after diagnosis. More frequent CAM use was observed among study participants who had undergone previous chemotherapy treatment and those with more than a high school education. Also, being less satisfied with their primary physician was associated with patients' more frequent CAM use. CONCLUSIONS: CAM use is increasing among women with breast cancer, and frequency of specific use according to type of CAM is higher than what has been reported in other studies. Use increased in patients who had undergone chemotherapy and in those with a high school education. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Oncology nurses are in a key position to identify what treatments patients are using and implement CAM therapies that can be helpful to relieve patient symptoms related to treatment and psychological distress.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2006

Autogenic training to reduce anxiety in nursing students: randomized controlled trial.

AIM: This paper reports a study to determine the effectiveness of autogenic training in reducing anxiety in nursing students. BACKGROUND: Nursing is stressful, and nursing students also have the additional pressures and uncertainties shared with all academic students. Autogenic training is a relaxation technique consisting of six mental exercises and is aimed at relieving tension, anger and stress. Meta-analysis has found large effect sizes for autogenic trainings intervention comparisons, medium effect sizes against control groups, and no effects when compared with other psychological therapies. A controlled trial with 50 nursing students found that the number of certified days off sick was reduced by autogenic training compared with no treatment, and a second trial with only 18 students reported greater improvement in Trait Anxiety, but not State Anxiety, compared with untreated controls. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial with three parallel arms was completed in 1998 with 93 nursing students aged 19-49 years. The setting was a university college in the United Kingdom. The treatment group received eight weekly sessions of autogenic training, the attention control group received eight weekly sessions of laughter therapy, and the time control group received no intervention. The outcome measures were the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, blood pressure and pulse rate completed at baseline, 2 months (end of treatment), and 5, 8, and 11 months from randomization. RESULTS: There was a statistically significantly greater reduction of State (P<0.001) and Trait (P<0.001) Anxiety in the autogenic training group than in both other groups immediately after treatment. There were no differences between the groups for the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The autogenic training group also showed statistically significantly greater reduction immediately after treatment in systolic (P<0.01) and diastolic (P<0.05) blood pressure, and pulse rate (P<0.002), than the other two groups. CONCLUSION. Autogenic training has at least a short-term effect in alleviating stress in nursing students.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Wellness programs: a review of the evidence.

OBJECTIVE: To review studies that have examined an association between wellness programs and improvements in quality of life and to assess the strength of the scientific evidence. DATA SOURCES: A MEDLINE search was constructed with the following medical subject headings: "psychoneuroimmunology," "chronic disease" and "health promotion," "chronic disease" and "health behaviour," "relaxation techniques," "music therapy," "laughter," "anger," "mediation" and "behavioural medicine." Searches using the text words "wellness" and "wellness program" were also carried out. References from the primary articles identified in the search and contemporary writing on wellness were also considered. STUDY SELECTION: Selection was limited to randomized controlled trials or prospective studies published in English that involved human subjects and that took place between 1980 and 1996. All studies with an intervention aimed at promoting wellness and measuring outcomes were included, except studies of patients with cancer and HIV and studies of health promotion programs in the workplace. Of the 1082 references initially identified, 11 met the criteria for inclusion in the critical appraisal. DATA EXTRACTION: The following information was extracted from the 11 studies: characteristics of the study population, number of participants (and number followed to completion), length of follow-up, type of intervention, outcome measures and results. All 11 studies were assessed for the quality of their evidence. DATA SYNTHESIS: All studies reported some positive outcomes following the intervention in question, although many had limitations precluding applicability of the results to a wider population. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the suggested benefit associated with wellness programs, the evidence was inconclusive. Whether the composition of the target group or the type of intervention has a role in determining outcomes is unknown. Although trends suggest that wellness programs may be cost-effective, further research is needed for confirmation.

Evidence-Based Medicine↗
PubMed2001

Modulation of neuroimmune parameters during the eustress of humor-associated mirthful laughter.

CONTEXT: Humor therapy and the related mirthful laughter are suggested to have preventive and healing effects. Although these effects may be mediated by neuroendocrine/neuroimmune modulation, specific neuroimmune parameters have not been fully investigated. OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy of mirthful laughter to modulate neuroimmune parameters in normal subjects. DESIGN: A series of 5 separate studies based on a multivariate repeated measures design, with post hoc simple contrast analysis. SETTING: The schools of medicine and public health at Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, Calif. SUBJECTS: 52 healthy men. INTERVENTION: Viewing of a humor video for 1 hour. Blood samples were taken 10 minutes before, 30 minutes into, and 30 minutes and 12 hours after the intervention. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Natural killer cell activity; plasma immunoglobulins; functional phenotypic markers for leukocytes including activated T cells, nonactivated T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, T cells with helper and suppressor markers, and assessment of plasma volume and compartmental shifts; plasma cytokine--interferon-gamma; and total leukocytes with subpopulations of lymphocytes, granulocytes, and monocytes. RESULTS: Increases were found in natural killer cell activity (P < .01); immunoglobulins G (P < .02), A (P < .01), and M (P < .09), with several immunoglobulin effects lasting 12 hours into recovery from initiation of the humor intervention; functional phenotypic markers for leukocyte subsets such as activated T cells (P < .01), active cytotoxic T cells (P < .01), natural killer cells (P = .09), B cells (P < .01), helper T cells (P < .02), uncommitted T cells with helper and suppressor markers (P < .02), helper/suppressor ratio (P = .10) with several leukocyte subset increase effects lasting 12 hours after the humor experience; the cytokine interferon-gamma (P = .02), with increases lasting 12 hours; total leukocytes (P < .05), with specific subpopulation lymphocytes during the intervention (P < .01) and 90 minutes into recovery (P < .05); and granulocytes during the intervention (P < .05) and 90 minutes following the intervention (P < .01). CONCLUSION: Modulation of neuroimmune parameters during and following the humor-associated eustress of laughter may provide beneficial health effects for wellness and a complementary adjunct to whole-person integrative medicine therapies.

Adult↗
PubMed2007

Humour therapy in patients with late-life depression or Alzheimer's disease: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Of the disabling disorders of the elderly, depression is the most common affective disorder and Alzheimer's disease (AD) the most common neurodegenerative disorder. Pharmacological treatment strategies for these disorders are often accompanied with severe side effects. Therefore non-pharmacological treatment strategies are of great importance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of humour therapy on quality of life in patients with depression or AD. METHODS: Twenty patients with late-life depression and 20 patients with AD were evaluated. Ten patients in each group underwent a humour therapy group (HT) once in two weeks for 60 min in addition to standard pharmacotherapy, which was given as usual to the other group as standard therapy (ST). All patients completed a psychometric test battery at admission and before discharge from the clinic. RESULTS: The quality of life scores improved both in HT and ST groups for depressive patients but not for patients with AD irrespective of the therapy group. Depressive patients receiving HT showed the highest quality of life after treatment. In addition, patients with depression in both therapy groups showed improvements in mood, depression score, and instrumental activities of daily living. CONCLUSIONS: Although there was no significant effect of humour therapy comparing with standard therapy on quality of life, these findings suggest that humour therapy can provide an additional therapeutic tool. Further studies with higher frequently humour groups are required in order to investigate the impact of humour therapy in gerontopsychiatric treatment.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2007

[A pilot project with clowns in psychiatric clinics].

BACKGROUND: This project examines whether visits of specially trained clinic clowns, as established in pediatrics, would also be useful in psychiatry. METHODS: We describe the effects of a 6-week phase with one clown visit per week in a ward for acutely ill geriatric patients. The patients and medical team were also questioned about their attitudes towards the clowns. RESULTS: We found more positive attitudes in patients after this phase. CONCLUSIONS: We interpret this result as an indication of positive effects and sufficient reason to initiate similar projects in the future.

Aged↗
PubMed2007

Increase in dermcidin-derived peptides in sweat of patients with atopic eczema caused by a humorous video.

OBJECTIVE: Dermcidin (DCD)-derived peptide is an antimicrobial peptide produced by the sweat glands. However, the levels of DCD-derived peptide in sweat were decreased in patients with atopic eczema (AE). The effect of viewing a humorous video on the levels of DCD-derived peptide was studied. METHODS: Twenty patients with AE viewed an 87-min humorous video (Modern Times, featuring Charlie Chaplin). Just before and immediately after viewing, sweat was collected, and the levels of DCD-derived peptide and total protein in sweat were measured. RESULTS: Viewing a humorous video increased the levels of DCD-derived peptide without affecting the levels of total protein in sweat. CONCLUSION: Viewing a humorous video increased DCD-derived peptide in sweat of patients with AE, and thus, it may be helpful in the treatment of skin infection of AE.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Effect of viewing a humorous vs. nonhumorous film on bronchial responsiveness in patients with bronchial asthma.

The effect of viewing a humorous film on bronchial responsiveness to methacholine [methacholine study: 20 healthy participants and 20 patients with house dust mite (HDM)-allergic bronchial asthma (BA)] or to epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg; EGCg study: 15 normal participants and 15 EGCg-allergic BA patients) was studied. At baseline, bronchial challenge test to methacholine (20 normal participants and 20 HDM-allergic BA patients) or EGCg (15 normal participants and 15 EGCg-allergic BA patients) were performed. After 2 weeks, patients and healthy participants were randomly assigned to watch a humorous or a nonhumorous film. Two weeks later, the alternate film was watched. Immediately after viewing, bronchial challenge test to methacholine or ECGg to each study group were performed. Viewing a humorous film significantly reduced bronchial responsiveness to methacholine or EGCg, while viewing a nonhumorous film failed to do so in BA patients without affecting bronchial responsiveness to methacholine or EGCg in healthy participants. These findings indicate that viewing a humorous film may be useful in the treatment and study of BA.

Adult↗