Effectiveness Of laughter therapy on stress among elderly people at selected setting, Chennai

Stress is defined as the physiological or psychological tension that threatens homeostasis or a person's psychological equilibrium. Laughter therapy aims to get people laughing in both group and individual sessions can help to reduce stress, make people happier and more committed, as well as improve their interpersonal skills. This study is aimed to assess the effectiveness of laughter therapy on stress among the elderly people at selected old age home at Chennai .The research design used was pre experimental one group pre-test and post-test design. The sample was selected by non-probability convenient sampling technique (n=60) and pre-test score assessed by structured questionnaire. After that, laughter therapy was practiced with elderly people. After 4 weeks of laughter therapy, the levels of stress among the elderly people were analysed by student paired “t” test. The results on post- test showed significant reduction of stress (p= 0.001) in score. The overall pre-test stress score was 62.6% whereas in post-test it was 29.9%. So the significance difference between pre-test and post- test stress score is 32.6%. The above finding revealed that laughter therapy was effective and helped the elderly people to reduce their stress level.