Akron, Ohio – Dementia robs the mind, but it can’t steal the heart of a clown.
The 2-year-old Beachwood Clown Troupe makes that clear. They reside in the Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Beachwood, and all have diagnoses of advanced Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia.
Last month, eight of them, most in wheelchairs, prepped for visits to other residents of the facility. Staffers and volunteers hovered around tables of electric pink, blue and yellow wigs and helped the clowns make choices about colors and outfits.
“Give me your foot,” activities specialist Katie Lally said to Eve Chuse, 91, as she helped her ease into a blue outfit.
Chuse was quick with a quip: “I can’t – I need it.”
Clowning is one of many alternative therapies at Menorah Park, a Jewish nursing home. The way-out-of-the-box therapies are usually the brainchild of Pam Nicholson, a gregarious woman who oversees the nursing home’s activities.
Nicholson has a graduate degree in divinity and says dementia patients are full of potential, even as their mental and physical capabilities ebb. “I know this may be the last day of their lives,” she said. “I know their lives are more fulfilled when they are doing mitzvah.”
The doing of mitzvah, or righteous duty, is the foundation of Judaism, said Rabbi David Lipper of Temple Israel. Even very ill people can perform mitzvah.
And that’s what the clowns at Menorah Park do. They entertain some of the most frail and ill residents of the facility. In addition to fulfilling religious obligation, the clowning is good medicine for the clowns themselves.
Troupe members tend to act more calmly the rest of the day after they dress up and entertain others, Nicholson said.
The effect is especially obvious during the late afternoon and early evening, a time when many dementia patients “sundown,” or become particularly agitated and confused, she said.
Pam Schuellerman of the Greater East Ohio Area Alzheimer’s Association said as more is learned about Alzheimer’s and other dementias, nursing homes tailor more activities to the specific interests of residents. Getting dementia patients socially involved is considered vital.
The clowning troupe officially began two years ago, although Nicholson previously had experimented with clowning using makeshift materials. The family of a resident with dementia offered to set up a “clown fund,” which now pays for the elaborate costumes, makeup and wigs.
“The first days we did the clown troupe was the last good day my mother had,” said clown fund co-creator Marcy Cowan of Shaker Heights, Ohio, who said her mother loved a good laugh.
Cowan has continued to volunteer at Menorah Park since her mother, Mildred Bonhard Reitman, died on April Fools’ Day two years ago.
After about a half hour of preparation, the clowns were ready.
“Almost ready to go for the parade?” a staffer asked 93-year-old Claire Green.
“I couldn’t be any readier,” she replied.
Once at the unit where the performance was to take place, the clown troupe was introduced to residents who are at the end stages of dementia.
Some of those residents were able to smile gently at the sight of the brightly colored seniors. Many others sat quietly, faces blank. (People in the late stages of dementia, Lally said, usually have trouble showing emotions.)
“OK, everybody!” said Lally, who oversees the clowning program. “We came to bring you some smiles!”
The singing began: “When you’re happy, and you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.” Some members of the audience tried to tap or sing along.
Ten minutes later, the clowns were off to another unit for a repeat performance. Then they went back to their own unit, where they were helped out of their outfits and makeup and readied for lunch.
Most of the clowns probably wouldn’t remember the performance. But the medicine of joy doesn’t rely on memory.
“For them,” said social worker Elyssa Pollock, “it’s in the moment.”
