Medical clowns can help kids through treatment
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Children and teens with pneumonia who receive a visit from a medical clown to help slow their heart rates and promote independence appear to spend less time in hospital.
Visits from medical clowns can help kids role-play or provide distraction during treatment, but until now Reduced stress and anxiety for young people in hospital.
now, Karin Yaakoby Vienu Researchers at Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and their colleagues specifically studied its effects in children hospitalized with pneumonia (lung inflammation).
The researchers randomly selected 26 children and young people aged 2 to 18 with pneumonia to receive 15-minute visits from a health clown twice a day for two days after their arrival at the center, while another 25 children and young people received similar care but without visits from a clown.
The clowns sang and played music with the participants, encouraging them to eat and drink on their own. “At first they were getting fluids and nutrients through tubes,” says Jacoby Vianeu.
The researchers found that patients who received a clown visit stayed at the center for an average of 44 hours, compared with 70 hours for those who didn’t. The results were presented at the European Respiratory Society conference in Vienna, Austria.
Doctors, who didn’t know which patients had received Clown Care, decided when to discharge them based on improvements in breathing and heart rate and the ability to eat and drink on their own, the latter indicating they could take antibiotic tablets at home rather than being given drugs intravenously, Yaacobi-Vianeu said.
The clowns likely helped the participants recover through play. It can lower blood pressure,say Kelsey Glover “Play can also boost young people’s well-being, mood, energy levels and physical confidence and capability,” say researchers from the University of Cambridge.
Graeber said the researchers should repeat the study in larger groups of children and teens with a variety of conditions at other hospitals.
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