• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.197-207
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a Laughter Therapy Group Counseling Program on overcoming anxiety, depression, and improving the self-esteem of mothers. The State-Trait Anger Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Self-Esteem Scale were used as a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test respectively. The test results were analyzed using a t-test, a one-way analysis of variance. Twelve mothers suffering from anxiety and depression participated in eight sessions of the program, and were then compared with twelve mothers in the control group who did not receive the treatment. The treatment group showed statistically significant improvements in self-esteem, and reduced levels of anxiety and depression, in comparison to the control group. It was concluded that the program was effective in overcoming anxiety, depression, and improving self-esteem in mothers.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.511-518
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the laughter treatment program on the satisfaction of life and emotional perception clarity of adult women. The subjects were 90 adult women in P metropolitan city who agreed to participate in the experiment and randomly placed 45 women in the control group and 45 women in the experimental group. In the experimental group, the laughter treatment program was conducted for fifteen weeks for a total of fifty minutes a week. t-test and covariance analysis were used to verify the effectiveness of the laughter treatment program. The results of the study are as follows. First, it was found that the laughter treatment program significantly improves the satisfaction of life of adult women. Second, the laughter treatment program significantly increased the emotional perception of adult women. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study and future research topics were discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1810-1819
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• 2013

This study is a nonequivalent-comparison-group-quasiexperimental-study which tries to establish the effect of a laughter therapy program on the blood pressure, depression, and the life quality of elderly women in rural area. The subjects are 49 females aged 65 living in S-myeon, 24 and the other 25 of whom are put into an experimental group and a comparison group, respectively. The laughter therapy was performed to the experimental group for 60 minutes a time, twice a week for 13 weeks, from January 5 to April 5 in 2011. To find out the intervention effect, the program was analyzed by a t-test. The result showed that the therapy lowers the systolic blood pressure, relieves depression, and enhances the life quality of them. Therefore, it is expected that the therapy, a useful program contributing to the health improvement of elderly women, can be made use of nursing intervention in clinical trials or communities.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.440-449
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• 2020

This study examined the effects of laughter therapy in the elderly with degenerative arthritis who had joint pain, joint dysfunction, and depression. Through a single-blind, randomized assignment, an experimental group of 26 subjects and a control group of 26 subjects were recruited among the elderly with degenerative knee arthritis, who were over 65 years of age. From January 8 to March 11 of 2019, a total of 16 laughter therapies were administered two times a week, 60 minutes per session, in eight weeks. The pain threshold (p=.012) and joint function status (p<.001), which represents the pain, joint stiffness, and physical function, and depression (p<.001), in the experimental group improved after the eight weeks laughter therapy compared to the control group. Laughter therapy is a therapeutic intervention that can be delivered through physical or intellectual activities. This therapy is a non-invasive procedure and has the advantage that nurses can practice easily with a little training. It can be used as an intervention within community and clinical settings to relieve pain and improve depression in the elderly with arthritis.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

This study was intended to prepare a basis to apply one time laughter therapy in clinical circumstances as an intervention for reducing job stress and improve job involvement of geriatric hospital workers by identifying the effect of one time laughter therapy on their physiological stress responses, job stress, and job involvement. This study was a Non-Equivalent control group pre-post design to validate the effect of one time laughter therapy. The participants of this study included 80 staffs of 2 geriatric hospitals located in I city, including 40 persons in each experimental and control group. Consent was obtained from the participants, after explaining sufficiently study purpose, blood pressure and pulse rate measurement, serum cortisol level measurement, and a questionnaire on job stress and job involvement and data collection was performed 2 times each, before and after the experimental procedure. For the collected data, frequency, percentage, average and standard deviation, χ2 test, Fisher's exact test and t-test were conducted using SPSS Win 19.0. The results of this study were as follows. The systolic blood pressure and the serum cortisol level were reduced significantly. It was found that although there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in job stress and job involvement. Therefore, it was identified that the one time laughter therapy was an effective nursing intervention to reduce physiological stress response of geriatric hospital workers.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.68-78
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the effects of Tai-Chi exercise and self-help management program applying laughter therapy in patients with osteoarthritis. Methods: This quasi-experimental study recruited a sample of 61 patients with osteoarthritis (experimental group: 30, control group: 31) through the community healthcare centers located in Seoul and Kyung Gi area. The primary outcome measures included symptoms of osteoarthritis, basic physical performance, fatigue, and depression assessed before and after the study. The data were analyzed using SPSSWIN V. 12.0. Results: At the end of the six-week intervention, left shoulder flexibility (t=2.011, p=.049), 6m walking speed (t=3.639, p=.001), and right balance (t=-2.30, p=.025) were significantly improved in the control group. Fatigue (t=3.012, p=.004), stiffness (t=2,093, p=.041), right shoulder flexibility (t=2.138, p=.037), right balance (t=-2.065, p=.043), and 6m walking speed (t=2.683, p=.009) were significantly improved in the experimental group. Conclusion: A twice a week, 6-week tai-chi exercise self-help management program applying laughter therapy is effective in decreasing fatigue and stiffness. Osteoarthritis is one of common chronic diseases that the patients should be required to continue self management for the rest of their life. Therefore, there is a need to develop the more effective self-help management program and nursing intervention to motivate them to maintain their own self-help management.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.291-303
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of laughter therapy on depression and sleep wake disorders among the elderly in residential facilities using a systemic review and meta-analysis. Twelve databases were searched. Two researchers independently performed the selection of the studies, data coding and assessment. The risk of bias was assessed using risk of bias (RoB) and risk of bias assessment tool for non-randomized studies (RoBANs). To estimate the effect size, meta-analysis of the studies was performed using R version 4.04. Out of the 1,122 retrieved articles, one randomized controlled trial (RCT) and eleven non-randomized controlled trials (non-RCTs) were selected for analysis. The overall effect size of eleven studies on depression was determined to be -1.04 (95% Cl: -1.53~-0.54, p<.001). There were statistically significant in the effect of below ten sessions and the effect of below 400 minutes'and 400 to 1000 minutes'interventions on depression. The overall effect size of five studies on sleep wake disorders was 0.83 (95% Cl: -0.26~1.93, p=.136), which was not statistically significant. There was statistically significant in the effect of below 300 minutes'interventions on sleep wake disorders. Laughter therapy was an effective non-pharmacological intervention to reduce depression among the elderly in residential facilities. The findings also suggest that guidelines for laughter therapy need to be developed considering the number of sessions and a duration of intervention to reduce depression and sleep wake disorders of the elderly in residential facilities.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.101-114
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• 2015

Objectives: Find out how it affects anxiety situations and self-esteem targeting the critical period of development of self-esteem in the lower grades in elementary school based on laughter therapy in having a positive influence on physical health promotion and positive emotional cultivation. And to verify the effects of laughter activity was to provide preliminary data on mental health education and guidance of school life. Methods: By targeting Ulsan Y elementary school, second grade 7 class, 191 students conducted test self-esteem and anxiety. Homogeneous group of experimental and control groups were selected in each one class. Classified as experimental group carried out laughter activity programs and control group did not carried out. Also the separation of the application program before and after, then it were performed preliminary-post-further as same checklist. Program coverage period is 12 weeks and 30 minutes per session was conducted twice a week. Differences between the experimental group and the comparison group has conducted the independent samples t-test, and if the difference between the experimental group and the comparison group were verified by performing a variance analysis(Oneway ANOVA) and post multiple comparisons. Results: Analysis of the experimental group decreased anxiety in the post-test than the pre-test as a whole, in particular, sub-areas of concern, shame and shyness was shown to be effective, and decision of the difficulty was not significant by insignificant reduction. In addition, self-esteem was increased in overall score. The score of collective self-esteem and School life self-esteem were more increased, and domestic self-esteem was not significant by slight increases. In contrast, the comparison group showed no significant difference in all areas of anxiety and self-esteem of pre-test and post-test. Conclusions: In experiments on self-esteem and anxiety of lower grade in elementary school through laughter activity program, comparison group it did not show an effect by accident, and experimental group showed meaningful effects that self-esteem was increased and anxiety was reduced. Thus, laughter activity can be seen that improving self-esteem, anxiety reduction and etc, is very beneficial to mental health.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.117-121
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• 2010

The This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the voice therapy we operated to the patients with age-related dysphonia. Thirty four participants who were diagnosed as age-related dysphonia in laryngoscopic finding from January, 2009 to December, 2009 completed the study. The participants were aged from 60 to 82 years old with a mean age of 70.6. All participants had received the abdominal breath technique, SKHPIP with laughter, and basic vocal training with description of their problem, the length of which ranged from four sessions to twelve sessions. We executed the videostroboscopy to compare the aspect of voicing change and the perceptual assessment, voice range profile, acoustic and aerodynamic measures to identify change of voice. Participants had glottal gap due to incomplete glottic closure during voicing on the pretest. After they took the voice therapy, the glottic gap became narrow and rough and breathy voice was reduced. There were significant difference in acoustic and aerodynamic measures. Jitter, Shimmer, MFR were reduced and MPT, Psub were increased(p<.05). Participants' pitch range and intensity range were increased on the posttest performance after taking voice therapy. Especially, most of them were showed that pitch range was increased significantly in high frequency area. The results of this investigation indicate that the voice therapy using abdominal breath, SKHPIP, and exercise together is effective for the patients who have age-related dysphonia to improve their voice quality. We recommend to apply this technique to functional voice disorders who are showed glottal gap.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.103-112
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• 2018

Pathological laughing and crying (PLC) is a condition defined by relatively uncontrollable episodes of laughter, crying or both. PLC is an uncommon symptom usually caused by cerebral lesions. Midbrain involvement causing PLC is extremely unusual and the exact mechanism by which this condition develops is poorly understood. We recently experienced a 51-year-old woman who were diagnosed as PLC after midbrain infarction. She was treated by acupuncture, pulsed electromagnetic therapy (PEMT). After 6 weeks treatment, Pathological Laughter and Crying Scale (PLACS), Korean version of the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (K-SARA) are decreased and Korean version of Modified Barthel Index (K-MBI) is increased. Treatment of traditional Korean Medicine could be effective for stoke rehabilitation including post-stroke PLC. And we have considered mechanism of PLC associated with midbrain lesion, dysfunction of cortex-thalamus-hypothalamus-basal ganglia-mesencephalon and faciorespiratory nuclei pathways, cerebro-ponto-cerebellar pathways and damaged serotonergic neurotransmission can cause this based on recent neurobiology of emotion. To define exact mechanism and find effective treatment, further studies are needed.