BACKGROUND: When one thinks of hospitals, one of the last things that a person would think of is a clown. However, the use of therapeutic clowns for kids and their families in hospitals has been increasing during the last decade. The job of these therapeutic clowns includes: entertaining children and their families in outpatient clinic waiting rooms, distracting families in emergency rooms, comforting parents of children in intensive care units, and distracting small children during frightening medical procedures. (SOURCE: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/)
JUST CLOWING AROUND, BUT NOT REALLY: In order to decrease the level of anxiety the children and their families are feeling, therapeutic clowns, in groups of two to three, are dressed in full clown and doctor costume and have bags filled with magic tricks, puppets, musical instruments, bubble solution, and any other props children find entertaining. Usually, therapeutic clowns will have a set schedule each day as to where they will be going in the pediatric department and they tend to stay away from rooms in which a doctor examination is taking place. However, there are times when clowns will accompany the children during small procedures to distract the children from what's going on. Once the clowns arrive in a hospital room, therapeutic clowns will do anything from making clown noises out of respirator tubing, blowing bubbles for babies, and joking around with teenagers. (SOURCE: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/)
THE IDEA IS SPREADING: In the last decade, there has been a rapid growth in the presence of clowns in hospitals, particularly in pediatric settings. Many thousands of children are exposed to clowns during their hospitalization. The Theodora Foundation sponsors clowns in 82 hospitals on three continents: Europe, Africa and Asia. In the United States, 90 clown doctors from the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Units (CCU) provide 250,000 bedside visits yearly, and in 2005, the Children's Medical Center in Dallas launched the Funnyatrics Clown Program. (SOURCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/)
BENEFITS: Clinical researchers from a variety of disciplines hypothesized that humorous distraction provided by clowns would increase patient cooperation, ameliorate parental anxiety and decrease the need for sedation. Results showed that there were significant decreases in observed child distress, in child self-reported distress, and parent-rated child distress with the clowns present. As a result, physicians found procedures significantly easier to perform with clowns present. In addition, positive changes in the behavior and mood of health care providers were observed when the clowns were around. (SOURCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/)
* For More Information, Contact:
The Children's Medical Center in Dallas
(214) 456-7000