Does humour have a place in palliative care?

Abstract

The concept of humour and its use in life are well accepted, with some people making a career out of making others laugh. People pay considerable sums of money to go to a theatre to listen to comedians in the hope of having a good laugh. Some benefits of humour are discussed below, but for now, let us consider whether humour has a place in palliative care. Palliative care is usually seen to be synonymous with sadness, fear and anxiety based on uncertainty as patients approach the end of their life. Palliative and end-of-life care is driven by the need to enhance quality of life and achieve a dignified death for all. To promote these two goals, care is focused on developing effective relationships with patients and those important to them. There are different ways of achieving such relationships, and humour is, according to Dean and Gregory (2005), seen as one way to achieve person-to-person connectedness.