This document provides an introductory lesson on the appropriateness and benefits of humor in hospice care settings. It outlines objectives of determining the right person, place, and time to incorporate humor. The lesson aims to analyze how humor can heal both the soul and body of patients and their families. References are provided on using humor in healthcare, finding joy in end-of-life journeys, and recording patient stories.
The goal of this lesson section is to introduce humor in to your hospice practice
The hospice nurse will incorporate humor when appropriate to the patient in keeping with the appropriateness of the place and time of the situation. A hospice patient is in need of lightness The patient is aware of their situation and may not want sadness all the time In life review there may be many funny memories that the patient would like to relive
Gibson’s (2004) “Finding the Joy in the Journey” is a short article about hospice patients that have passed and a joy that a little humor brought to them after the death of a loved one. The hospice nurse will need to find scholarly articles that involve humor and life review in hospice for this unit and complete a review of the article and its connection to this lesson.
Link for video of a motivational speaker at a hospice convention that is suggested to show that there can be humor in hospice. Hospice Motivational Speaker Brad Montgomery . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCcVJSH5xOk
The hospice nurse must know when humor is appropriate. The objective is for the nurse to understand the three fundamentals to humor. The end goal is to make the patient happy and to do so you must know is this the right person, place and time or humor.
The nurse will through interview and interaction determine if this patient is one who enjoys CLEAN humor. Asking the patient and family questions such as … do or did the patient enjoy joking around or were they very serious all the time?
It the right place or situation to interject humor?
Is this the right time? What is in process at the time of the interjection of humor?
At the end of this lesson session the nurse will know when it is appropriate to interject humor into the care of the hospice patient.
This program is only offered at this institution and the class participant must be enrolled in the BSN program and in good standing.
Gibson, L., (2004(, Comic relief. Finding joy in the journey. Urologic Nursing 24 (3): 217, 221 ISSN: 1053-816X PMID: 15311495 Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=126&sid=ca8dc262-23ce-49f5-a 8dd-e6dc70a0cdfa%40sessionmgr112. View video: Funny Health Care Speaker | Hospice Motivational Speaker Brad Montgomery, Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhCauwWUlU4. Volunteers preserve memories for families: storykeepers record patient stories for posterity. (2009). Hospice Management Advisor, 14 (1): 5-6. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=126&sid=c6351241-8b8e-41c2-be5d-3f2ec33b02f1%40sessionmgr13
The main tool of this lesson will be lecture as well as readings and a video. An evaluation tool will be administered to the students after this lesson to evaluate the understanding of the student, the concept and material. Students will be encouraged to give honest feedback in an effort to revise this lesson to aid all students.