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American HMO’s Use Humor Too |
The English edition of the Asahi Herald reports today starting this month, Kyoseikan Welfare and Medical College, a vocational school specializing in the medical field, will bring its program, “principles of performing arts and welfare” to nursing care facilities.
The hope is to not only improve communication with the elderly patients but to also stimulate their brain chemistry.
Mr. Ito, a physician with the school’s faculty, told reporters the secretion of the chemical interleukin 6 (IL-6), which is blamed for aggravating several symptoms, including articular rheumatism, decreases when people laugh.
The students are taught the necessary tools to “do everything possible in the fields of medical treatment, nursing care and welfare to help bring joy to the elderly and give them something to live for. It’s good to have students learning how to make them laugh.”
So how do doctors and nurses learn to bring laughter to their charges? In addition to the usual courses in nursing care and welfare, the school’s two-year performing-art-in-welfare program includes instruction in magic tricks, street performances, singing and playing musical instruments.
Mr. Ito loves to perform magic tricks for his patients but for medicinal purposes, of course. “I like to use laughter to bolster the immune system.”
Unfortunately, the Asahi Herald reports the governing board for the school is against the curriculum. “Prefectural government officials in charge of supervising vocational schools said they had never heard of any school curriculum that includes a good laugh.”
Maybe there is a connection between intelligence and humor, then.
![]() |
American HMO’s Use Humor Too |
The English edition of the Asahi Herald reports today starting this month, Kyoseikan Welfare and Medical College, a vocational school specializing in the medical field, will bring its program, “principles of performing arts and welfare” to nursing care facilities.
The hope is to not only improve communication with the elderly patients but to also stimulate their brain chemistry.
Mr. Ito, a physician with the school’s faculty, told reporters the secretion of the chemical interleukin 6 (IL-6), which is blamed for aggravating several symptoms, including articular rheumatism, decreases when people laugh.
The students are taught the necessary tools to “do everything possible in the fields of medical treatment, nursing care and welfare to help bring joy to the elderly and give them something to live for. It’s good to have students learning how to make them laugh.”
So how do doctors and nurses learn to bring laughter to their charges? In addition to the usual courses in nursing care and welfare, the school’s two-year performing-art-in-welfare program includes instruction in magic tricks, street performances, singing and playing musical instruments.
Mr. Ito loves to perform magic tricks for his patients but for medicinal purposes, of course. “I like to use laughter to bolster the immune system.”
Unfortunately, the Asahi Herald reports the governing board for the school is against the curriculum. “Prefectural government officials in charge of supervising vocational schools said they had never heard of any school curriculum that includes a good laugh.”
Maybe there is a connection between intelligence and humor, then.
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