Rx Laughter Gives Comic Relief to the Sick

As a network programming executive in the 1990s, Sherry Dunay Hilber noticed something profound happening when people watched comedy together. “I would go to the filmings and see the staff writers, cast and audience all sort of bond while they were experiencing this story being played out,” Hilber says. “I started to think about the role that laughter plays in bringing people together and creating a comfortable feeling.” Around the same time, Hilber was doing volunteer work with pediatric patients at UCLA Medical Center and had reached the point where she wanted to dedicate herself even more to philanthropic work. “I started thinking about how to use my experience in the entertainment world to help people in the real world,” she says. Her answer was RxLaughter, a 501c3 nonprofit corporation Hilber founded in 1998. RxLaughter conducts research, educational and therapeutic programs involving the use of comedy as a prescription for people coping with physical and mental illness. From the beginning, Hilber wanted RxLaughter to have a research component, a method of evaluating the therapeutic effects of humor “so that the scientific community can take it seriously,” she says. The transition from show business to the health care industry meant learning a brand new way of making things happen. Organizing, securing startup funding and bringing researchers on board for the first project took about two years. “By the time I got to that point, I had been through the fire,” Hilber says. “It wasn’t just content, it was process that was so difficult,” Hilber says. “It made me realize why this was something that hadn’t been done before by anyone else in the entertainment industry.” In 1999, RxLaughter embarked on its first research project, a four-year study at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. Funded by an unrestricted grant from Comedy Central, the study examined what happens when children watch funny videos while undergoing painful and uncomfortable medical procedures like chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants and dialysis. The researchers found that the patients who watched the videos tolerated the treatments longer and with less anxiety than those who didn’t see them. The results of that study became a springboard for the development of humor therapy programs used in a variety of settings, including hospitals, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes and mental health clinics. In 2006, the organization collaborated with the National Cancer Institute in Thailand and graduate students at the Yale University School of Public Health on a two-year study. Participants in cancer support groups who watched humorous Thai films and TV shows experienced less pain and better sleep, while the nursing staff caring for them got a morale boost themselves, the study found. In 2009, RxLaughter completed a pilot project with the Markstein Cancer Education and Preventive Services Center at The Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. This time, the subject was a cancer support group that employs writing therapy. Humorous film clips were introduced as the prompts to get members to write about their feelings. “We wanted to find out not only if it would be good in helping them write about their experiences, but also whether it would be good in general discussion groups for cancer patients and other people,” Hilber says. “What we learned is that it was indeed helpful. We want to start from scratch and develop a really special support group where film clips can be used.” New projects in development include humor therapy workshops for military families and research by a neuroscientist on using humor in treating clinical depression. Hilber still gets excited about each project the organization takes on—the more innovative the better. “I love for each one to be very different from the other and for the information that we cull from these projects to be able to be used by other people,” she says. Comic entertainers like Ray Romano, Dane Cook and others have performed in concerts to benefit RxLaughter, while other organizations like Artists Give Back, Tom Hanks’ Playtone Productions and the Roy Export Company Establishment, which holds the copyright on many Charlie Chaplin films, have also lent support. Comedy Central has been a continuing benefactor since underwriting the inaugural research project. As passionate as Hilber was about what she calls her “leap of faith” into launching RxLaughter, she’s amazed that she pulled it off. “The most gratifying thing is that I’ve been able to do it, that it actually happened,” she says. “I’m still in shock that it happened. The most satisfying is seeing that health care people really want to do this. I constantly get requests from doctors and nurses. I was surprised: I thought they would pooh-pooh it.” By Sonya Stinson Daniel Longmire Photo copyright Rx Laughter