Chapman University Professor FRANK CHINDAMOStudy Shows Laughter Is Good MedicineFor Healthcare Provi

Orange, CA – Chapman University Dodge College of Film and Media Arts adjunct professor Frank Chindamo developed an app to help hospital healthcare providers and patients laugh more. He tested his LaughMD app with Chapman Marriage and Family Therapy graduate students and the results showed laughter is “good medicine” for health care providers, too. Chindamo has a long history in laughter. At age 19, he was interning for NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) and shortly thereafter working on the original Ghostbusters movie. But after his father, younger brother and stepfather all died in hospitals, he vowed to bring laughter into hospitals as a form of therapeutic medicine. The LaughMD app wasn’t the original concept. It evolved when he realized that healthcare providers – even more than patients -- could benefit from laughter. Initially, he launched comedy channels onto the patient TV sets at two premiere hospitals in Los Angeles: Cedars-Sinai and Kaiser Permanente. The channels were well received, but were difficult to monetize and measure. Chindamo then shifted the model to provide comedy to healthcare providers. “After spending so much time in hospitals, I could see that the healthcare providers needed laughter as much as the patients,” Chindamo said. “These professionals have very high levels of stress and employee burn-out, and these factors can lead to increased hospital costs and even deadly mistakes.” Chindamo, who teaches “Art & Business of Web Video” and “Advanced Web Video Production” at Chapman University launched a study to see if short comedy videos, played on the healthcare provider’s own mobile phones, could reduce their stress levels. For 30 days, student practitioners at the Chapman University’s Crean College of Health & Behavioral Sciences’ Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic logged 720 numerical results. The baseline rate of the participants’ stress levels was 3.34 out of 5. Average stress rating after consuming laughter was 2.69. That's a difference of 0.65 out of 5, or 13%.” “The diagnosis was good,” Chindamo said. “Ninety-nine percent of the respondents felt the same or better after watching comedy videos on the LaughMD beta app. If stress is a "disease" these results could indicate that people who are the most diseased stand to benefit the most from laughter.” Medical research shows laughter to have the following benefits to hospital staff: Enables earlier patient release―laughter speeds up recovery, which can help shorten hospitalization cycles, saving costs and enabling hospitals to serve more patients. Improves patient comprehension and compliance―research shows that patients who receive pre and post-operative instructions in a more relaxed and light-hearted state of mind are much better at following those instructions. Reduces patient anxiety―laughter’s stress-reducing effects improve patient and family satisfaction and help diffuse potentially confrontational attitudes. Here is how Laugh MD works: Once the user is signed into the app, they can rate their stress levels before and after watching a short comedy film. The categories include: cartoons stand up, sketch comedy, funny animals and funny baby videos. They are vetted to be “safe for work”, short and funny. The study and survey were conducted by Frank Chindamo, adjunct professor in Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, in association with Susan Jester, MA, LMFT, Director of Chapman’s Frances Smith Center for Individual & Family Therapy and Dr. Naveen Jonathan Ph.D. LMFT, Clinical Assistant Professor of Marriage & Family Therapy and Director of Chapman’s Marriage & Family Therapy Program, and aided by Chapman business administration student intern Andrew Ooi. Although more research is planned on the effects of LaughMD, more information can be found at www.laughMD.com. About Frank Chindamo Frank Chindamo is a Adjunct Professor at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Media Arts. He’s the founder of Fun Little Movies and one of the world's top producers of comedic Advertainment videos for the web and TV. He's a global authority on mobile and online entertainment and the new Curriculum Coordinator/Instructor of New Media at Columbia College, Hollywood. Frank is also the Adjunct Professor of web video at USC, UCLA, and Emerson College, and he was awarded Adjunct Professor of the Year at Chapman University's Dodge College of Media Arts. His students have included Primetime Emmy Winner Bernie Su, billion-hitter Freddie Wong, and 5SecondFilms. In 2016 he was voted Adjunct Professor of the Year at Chapman University’s Dodge College and won the 2016 Distinguished Service Award from the Caucus. He co-authored the Amazon release, "YouTube Success In 5 Steps: Five Steps. No Limits" and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Web Television. Frank is an in demand speaker on Mobile Video at NAPTE, CES, Digital Hollywood and has garnered innumerable awards including Nokia's Content Award at Cannes, Best Comedy and Best Animation at CTIA, and the MoFilm Grand Prize at GSM in Barcelona where he was handed the keys to a new Chevy Volt by Hollywood mogul Kevin Spacey. See more of Frank Chindamo on the front pages of Forbes Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, CNN and USA Today. Frank has produced videos and video series for iconic brands including Chevrolet, Kingston Technologies, Best Buy, Walmart, Petco, Intel, Evite, Radio Shack, Discovery Channel's Planet Green, and a YouTube Original funded series for AlrightTV. For more information visit: http://www.funlittlemovies.com. Contact Frank Chindamo at Frank@LaughMD.com About Chapman University As an academically distinguished center of learning, Chapman University attracts extraordinary students and faculty from around the globe. Its ten schools and colleges foster a vibrant intellectual community, and provide extensive opportunities for students to learn, grow and discover alongside remarkable faculty. The University is home to some 8,000 students pursuing bachelor, master and doctoral degrees, and is alma mater to more than 40,000 alumni found throughout the United States and the world. Now celebrating its 156th year, Chapman is known for its distinguishing strengths in leadership and civic engagement, in the arts and entertainment disciplines, and in specialized sectors of technology and science. The University is comprised of its main campus in Orange, California, and the Rinker Health Science campus for graduate health science programs in Irvine, California. Visit us at www.chapman.edu.