Celebrate Senior Citizens Month with Humor and Health

April 28, 2004 -- May is Senior Citizens Month, a time to embrace the elderly community. In a culture that sometimes places the aging aside, we are fortunate to have a few forward thinkers who appreciate the strength and wisdom of older Americans. Jacki Kwan, LCSW-C, is one of these few people.

As a humor therapist, Kwan has built her life mission out of connecting with the aging people who often lack support systems of their own. Dressed as “Elfinya” the therapeutic clown, Kwan uses laughter to rekindle the youthful spirit of nursing home residents, when oftentimes these facilities are the last places a person would expect to find good humor.

“When I take the time to look into the eyes of some of the residents, I can see the profound loneliness in their spirits. And when I talk to the staff social workers and hear the stories of those families who never come to visit, my heart melts,” Kwan says in her book, Almost Home: Embracing the Magical Connection Between Positive Humor & Spirituality (Cameo Publications, $14.99, ISBN 0-9715739-1-3). The book combines Kwan’s personal experiences as a therapeutic clown in the health care system with information on the benefits and the background of humor therapy in use. It helps readers discover the true depth and influence of laughter on the human soul.

“A nursing home resident once said to me, ‘If you don’t have humor, you don’t have life,’ and I think that sums it up perfectly,” says Kwan. “So frequently the humor part of people’s spirit atrophies, especially for people in nursing homes. When they don’t use their humor, they lose it. I want people to use humor to heal their minds, bodies, and souls.”

It takes courage and spirit to face a lonely day, especially in a nursing home filled with depression and negativity. Everyone should let this Senior Citizens Month serve as a reminder of the wisdom and strength of the aging, and also of the benefits a good laugh can have on a weary body and mind.

Jacki Kwan is a Licensed Certified Social Worker ant the Clinical Level, a Master Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic Programming, a Registered Laughter Leader with the World Laughter Tour, and a Therapeutic Clown. She spreads happiness and good health through Laughter Club sessions at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the Washington, D.C. area. She has been presenting workshops on humor and health since 1994. In 1999, she created HA!HA!LOGY®, a multi-faceted therapeutic humor program for health care facilities.

For more information or a review copy of Almost Home: Embracing the Magical Connection Between Positive Humor & Spirituality please call 1-866-372-2636, or send an email to marketing@cameopublications.com.





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