Back Patients Will Laugh Out Loud (LOL) During Laughter Clinic in Vernon Hills

Vernon Hills, IL, March 19, 2007 – Managing back pain for Colleen Caron is a laugh a minute. The chronic back pain patient and laughter therapist says laughter is an analgesic and she is spreading the word to other sufferers. On Saturday, April 14, 10:30 - noon, Caron will share her love for laughter with other back pain patients during a therapy/yoga sesson at the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch clinic located at 565 Lakeview Parkway in Vernon Hills.

“Laughing is the best medicine for many medical conditions, including back pain,“ she says. “When the body releases hormones & chemicals, it increases endorphins and there are tremendous residual effects. Stress is reduced, blood pressure drops, depression is lifted, the immune system is boosted and often pain goes away.”

Caron, who has more than 20 years of experience as a psychiatric nurse is a certified Laughter Therapist from The World Laughter Tour. She starts the therapy/yoga session with simple breathing exercises and head and neck stretches and then a form of yoga with an accompanying laugh. Within 10 minutes, the fake laugh is replaced with an uncontrollable belly laugh.

“The use of laughter therapy is not new. In fact, a personal account published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 1976, noted that ten minutes of belly laughing equaled up to two hours of pain relief,“ says Daniel Hurley, M.D., physiatrist for CINN who also sees patients in the Vernon Hills office. ”Laughter affects you physically and emotionally. It helps the respiratory system, the musculoskeletal system and eases muscle tension and stress.”

Caron’s classes can be as small as 10 people and as many as 300, but laughter participation is usually 98 to 100 percent. She also coaches caregivers on using laughter for chronic pain or cancer patients Caron recommends relaying a recent humorous incident or using a humor board to post cartoons, jokes and articles that tickle the funny bone. She also counsels hospitals, to create humor carts that contain funny books, jokes, videos and DVDs for patients.

The Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch medical group (CINN) is one of the nation’s leading organizations for the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of people with brain and spine disorders. Originally founded in 1987, CINN is one of the Midwest’s largest teams of neurosurgeons known for their pioneering treatments and minimally invasive techniques. Currently, the Chicago based neurosurgery practice has offices in Chicago, Highland Park, Elmhurst, Skokie and Harvey. For more information or to book a reservation for the laughter therapy session, call 773-250-1009 or log on to www.cinn.org for more information.