Parenting UP! Caregiving adventures with comedian J Smiles

Comedy Cares: Improv's Role in Caregiving

• J Smiles • Season 5 • Episode 15

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Audio family! We shot this episode on location at Dad's Garage, but we made sure to include our listeners to get insight on what we learned. This episode explores the transformative power of improvisational comedy in dementia caregiving. We dive into an inspiring gathering connecting science and creativity, highlighting how humor can enhance communication and understanding in caregiving.

In this episode, expect: 

• Overview of the "Improving Care Through Improv" program 
• Insights from experts on the benefits of using improv with dementia patients 
• Personal stories from caregivers on their experiences and learnings 
• Discussion on emotional wellbeing and self-care for caregivers 
• The scientific foundation supporting improv as a therapeutic approach 
• Encouragement to cultivate community support among caregivers

We do suggest that you check out the video on youtube.com/@parentingup


Host: J Smiles

Producer: Mia Hall 

Editor: Annelise Udoye

#CaregivingJourney
#DementiaAwareness
#AlzheimersCare
#CaregiverSupport
#HumorInCaregiving
#EndAlz

#gerontology

#georgiastate

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Speaker 1:

What's up? Family? It's your girl, j Smiles, and I am on location in Dad's garage. Nobody is fixing cars over here or doing oil changes. It's a wonderful theater in Atlanta, but tonight we were doing something really special. Actually, there was a whole program with really fancy scientists, gerontologists and other things that I can't pronounce giving us research techniques on how come improv that's right, a comedic tool can actually help caregivers and caries through the whole world of dementia. A NIH grant, a Georgia State University grant, y'all. I was here with fancy people doing fancy stuff. It was so exciting, so I want you to stick with me. Watch as we go along, chat with some folks, give you some BTS. You know behind the scenes footage. All right, you ready. It's some good stuff and you're getting it for free.

Speaker 1:

Parenting Up caregiving adventures with comedian Jay Smiles is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama. For over a decade, I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler alert this shit is heavy. That's why I started doing comedy. So be ready for the jokes. Caregiver newbies, ogs and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver you are in the right place. Hi, this is Zeddy. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast, is that okay? Today's supporter shout out is from YouTube. Today's supporter shout out is from YouTube Shante Carter, hyphen Lacey, 144. Quote thank you for guiding us on this journey of parenting up. Emoji red heart. You are so welcome. I don't know if I'm guiding y'all or if y'all are guiding me, but we are in this together and together we can make it out, because caregiving sucks, but we love our folks and we're going to stay in it. If you want to be the recipient of the caregiver.

Speaker 2:

Supporter. Shout out, please. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, ig or YouTube. Thank you to the organizing committee, dr Antonia Skipper, dr Wendy Simons, and to Celeste Green for the program on publicity cover design, and especially to the staff from Dad's Garage, especially Nate Rosie.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for welcoming us and doing this with us. Many thanks also to our students, alumni, community partners and friends of gerontology. You're here tonight, so you're a friend of gerontology. A special thanks goes out this year to Improving Through Improv, led by Amanda Lee Williams and in collaboration with Dad's Garage. I think this project and the program you will see tonight is a shining example of what we can do if we work closely with our community partners to engage, be creative and use joy and laughter to move forward towards high quality of life for older adults and their care partners. You are our Gerontology family and we appreciate all of you and thank you all for being, for being here and what you do for the institute and for older adults and their care partners across georgia and beyond. The gerontology institute is small but mighty. The best thing about the gerontology institute is our family life and collegial culture, as you've noticed we're doing something a little different this year and bringing the pain lecture to you from Dad's garage.

Speaker 2:

We're also featuring one of our own core faculty, Dr Candice Kemp, and I'm very sure Ted is going to do a great job of showering her with accolades in just a minute. I just need to say a few words about Dr Kemp. Candice has been a friend and colleague of mine since 2003, when I met her while eight months pregnant with my now 21-year-old daughter. Over the last two decades I've had the privilege of working by her side and witnessing her many, many talents. Candice Kemp's work is a shining example of rigorous academic research that engages important issues facing older adults and their care partners. It is clear that she cares deeply about older adults and is moved to figure out ways to support them in ways that optimize quality of life.

Speaker 4:

Chicken in the car and the car won't go. Even with improv training for dementia communication, I had no idea where to go with that.

Speaker 4:

So my lovely wife Susan and I were up north visiting a relative in Maori care having lunch, and I was fishing for some connection around a chance encounter story, a humorous tale that we had been sharing for about 35 years. Instead, I got chicken in the car and the car won't go. I'll come back to that. I'm Ted Johnson, co-director of Georgia Gear. Maybe you got a temporary tattoo when you were downstairs. Georgia Gear is a federally funded program at Emory University that supports innovations in senior care, like this awesome example. Tonight, here at Dad's Garage, you'll hear from Dr Candice Pound, who will be delivering the Barbara Payne Lectureship, along with her and our awesome partner Amanda Lee Williams, a Dad's Garage actor that's leading a program called Improving Care Through Improv. Chicken in the car and the car won't go that's how you spell Chicago.

Speaker 5:

And then it clicked.

Speaker 4:

The person that I was talking to remembered or maybe didn't, that we had met in Chicago, nearby where I was on campus at Bethel School. And I said we were in Chicago when we ran into each other on campus, right, and suggested, exactly, you were fine, exactly, and then the conversation just sort of floated away. So, fishing for a 35 year old memory, I caught a 70 year old memory about phonics. And how do you spell the city Chicago? Get in the car and the car won't go. It connected in some cosmic way. This story, and that's the power of improv finding enjoyment in meaning where you weren't sure that there was any. So tonight you are in for a treat. Welcome to the Barbara Payne Lecture.

Speaker 7:

First, as you might know and if you don't, you're going to learn it tonight improv often involves unscripted collaborative performance. Yes, and is a commonly known improv phrase that encourages people to accept and build on what others are saying or doing. Improv training shows potential for enhancing creative thinking and the ability to deal with uncertainty, including chicken Chicago. It's been shown to improve empathy, flexibility and listening skills among healthcare practitioners, and preliminary work also associates improv training among family care partners with positive outcomes.

Speaker 1:

Hey, what's up? Parented Up family. Guess what. Have you ever wanted to connect with other caregivers? You wanna see more behind the scenes footage? Wanna know what me and Zeddy are doing? I know you do All things. Jsmiles are finally ready for you, even when I go live. Do it now with us on Patreon. Join us in the Patreon community. Catch everything we're doing. Visit patreoncom. Forward. Slash JSmilesStudios with an S. Tonight we are attending an event which I love the title Improving. I don't want to mess it up Improving Care Through Improv.

Speaker 8:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Improving Care Through Improv yes. Do you agree with that and how did you feel about the program?

Speaker 8:

I totally agree with that, because we know, if you're a family caregiver and your person is living with dementia, we know that it can be very challenging and we haven't been taught and equipped with what to do and how to handle it and the tools and just changing our thought pattern, yes, that we can use these things, yes, and integrate these approaches, is so eye-opening for people if they've never thought about it before.

Speaker 1:

That's right. As a stand-up comedian, I would say that I have routinely offered people hey, if you're trying something, use yes, and I was so encouraged to hear that be a part of the program tonight. Yes, that's like commandment number one, actually commandment number two. Yes and yes In improv. And do you feel that that would help you and the people that you engage with?

Speaker 8:

I've watched it help people Okay For a long, long time and I've been a part little part of this program. I got to go through the class Wonderful and provide feedback and I watched it help people so much. It's excellent.

Speaker 1:

Y'all heard it here Improv comedy helps caregivers and it's somebody working with fancy people in the Science and Gerontology Institute. So don't you ain't got to believe me, a stand-up comedian, it's fancy science.

Speaker 8:

Well, and the person that they mentioned in there, karen Stobbe, s-t-o-b-e, and her husband, mundy Carter. They are amazing and they are both improv folks who really, I think, started this whole focus on using improv for people living with dementia. They were actors and improv folks on using improv for people living with dementia. They were actors and improv folks and then became family caregivers and they've actually done a TED Talk on it.

Speaker 3:

Say yes and.

Speaker 5:

Agree, don't deny.

Speaker 3:

Accept offers and gifts.

Speaker 5:

Be specific, listen, fully, accept the reality given to you.

Speaker 3:

Go with the flow.

Speaker 5:

Share focus Give and take.

Speaker 3:

Silence can be powerful.

Speaker 5:

Commit 100%.

Speaker 3:

Be in the moment.

Speaker 5:

Those are some of the guidelines for performing improvisation.

Speaker 3:

Those also happen to be some of the guidelines for being with a person who is living with Alzheimer's.

Speaker 5:

My name is Mundy Carter. I have a degree in philosophy and theater, so I can really think about not working. I met my wife, karen, while performing improv. My name's Karen Stobe.

Speaker 3:

I love performing, but I'm lousy at memorization, so I took up improv 30 years ago. My dad, Manfred, passed away from Alzheimer's disease in October of 2000, and my mom, Virginia, has been living with Alzheimer's for the past 13 years. I realized in caregiving for both of my parents that the guidelines for improv and the guidelines for being with a person with Alzheimer's are parallel.

Speaker 8:

That's phenomenal, so everybody needs to check out their TED Talk. I agree.

Speaker 1:

Actors and activists that is a lot of what being a family caregiver is.

Speaker 8:

Yeah, well thank you so much. Thank you, it was a pleasure to meet you. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 9:

My name is Dr Antonia Skipper. I'm an assistant professor of gerontology at Georgia State University.

Speaker 1:

My mom getting Alzheimer's. Actually it didn't I won't say it for Dr Skipper because I chose to leave my life of engineering and law and design and all this stuff to become a caregiver. Then I became a comedian because of being a caregiver. So all of these things that you all are working are putting together scientifically for people to understand what humor does. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry After I'm watching I'm like, oh my God, somebody sees me and sees what I feel, and you all are scientists. So I think the way you say it is going to help me tell people no, for real, this really works. I got people with coats and letters behind their names who've done studies funded by NIH and the government and things. So how did y'all even decide to do this study?

Speaker 9:

This is a. Really this lasted a year. It is, it is and this is all Dr Kemp's baby and I think she's had this idea for a very, very long time and she just kind of took it and ran with it and it's amazing to see kind of what it's grown into and what it's become. But I think so much of it has a part of Gerontology Institute in it as well, and so even if we don't study it directly, you'll see that Dr Jennifer Craft Morgan works on it with these projects and you know kind of all of us and a lot of my work is with strong black families, and so I consider how humor contributes to long lasting relationships, how humor helps families to be together for 30, 40, 50 years and marriages and things of that nature, and so I think it all kind of ties together. But the improv piece is just amazing and I mean it's wonderful what Dr Kemp is doing with it.

Speaker 1:

You spoke of being involved in gerontology, and you are your choice in gerontology and you are your choice, yes, your, your expertise is in strong black families, which I could go ahead and start doing a uh, a praise dance right here, but I won't do that right now. How, how did you decide that, within gerontology, that's what you wanted to focus on there's a lot going on with the elderly people. Yes, so that's a nice slice of our community. How did you get to that?

Speaker 9:

I mean, I honestly got so it started in just family research. I got tired of the deficit narratives around black families. You know, we hear a lot about divorce, we hear a lot about deficit, we hear a lot about deadbeat dads, we hear all of the negatives. And so I wanted to understand what keeps black families together and strong for a long time, especially in marriages, and nobody's really doing that research and asking couples who have been married for 40, 50, 60 years, how'd you do it? And really understanding what gets at the crux of staying together, what gets at the crux of building a strong union, and even on the caregiving aspect, and understanding how these couples come together and there's no individual. If you have a sickness, we're sick and you don't have to get through it. We're going to get through it. And so just understanding the black family and how the black family stays strong has just become my life work. You know it's amazing to do.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I saw that with my grandparents. They really were one unit as they aged and parts of their body started to fail them. My grandfather couldn't see, but my grandmother had osteoporosis and was weak, and my grandfather went blind from diabetes. To watch them figure out how they were going to fold and wash the clothes, who was going to sort and who was going to take it to the washing machine and the dryer.

Speaker 1:

At first I was upset that my mama and her siblings hadn't like god, I'm gonna better do it themselves, I say. But you know what? Actually, they still have purpose right and they're taking care of each other, and the number of people who have told me hey, jade smiles the reason why I'm still with this man, or the reason why I'm with this, this sister, she makes me laugh yeah, humor is a big piece it's hard out there I have a piece that's been accepted, um with marriage and family review, so it'll be published soon, but it's on understanding humor in the role of, uh, strengthening families across the life force and so it

Speaker 9:

really is considering. I mean bringing across the improv and just comedy and all of that stuff. I mean you think about black folks, like we've been taught since forever. You know you laugh through it, you smile through it, you laugh to keep from crying and all of that. And so you know we don't have a choice. We don't have a choice a lot of times when you don't have other resources. You know that's always something you can look toward, that's always something you can lean on.

Speaker 1:

So I think it just intersects so well with a lot of the work that we're doing in Jared's Island. I love it and so I look forward to having you on the podcast, maybe having you in a skit, maybe having you at a comedy show, Maybe I come talk to you and your people and your team. I'm just saying let's make it happen. You're doing the heavy lifting so I could just come in and tell some jokes.

Speaker 9:

I mean, that's the beauty of it is because, like you know, we publish and we do the research, but so often those messages don't get out to the community. So you're doing the work in the community that really you know.

Speaker 9:

That's where it needs to be told, right, because the people I'm writing, for they don't have subscriptions to these different journals and know about what's going on with my grants and things of that nature. So I need you to be the voice that can get my message out to the community. So I appreciate it. Doc needs me. We're going to make it happen.

Speaker 1:

A doctor of gerontology, which my grandfather would not even know how to spell, needs me. I appreciate it. I love it. I love it. Thank you, honey, thank you, okay, we just attended this fancy program, yes, telling people how you can use improv to help caregivers dealing with people with dementia. How did you feel about the program?

Speaker 10:

You know my expectations. I didn't have any coming, but whatever, if I had, they would have exceeded it. I think it was a great opportunity to get a chance to see a different perspective on communication with dementia and older care, and I think it was awesome.

Speaker 6:

Yes, I thought it was amazing as well. I've been working with long-term care and persons living with dementia for many years and to see those best practices really put into such an interesting way that everyone can be a part and learn from it and I think it would be successful with persons living with dementia either at home or in a community it was amazing.

Speaker 1:

So both of you are in gerontology programs.

Speaker 10:

Yes, yeah, that's a mouthful.

Speaker 1:

Did I say it right? Gerontology Okay, how did you get into the study of old people?

Speaker 10:

Okay, well for me. I was introduced through a professor of mine and my undergrad is in speech-language pathology. So I was torn in between did I want to work with older people or did I want to work with the youth? And so, just after contemplating and weighing all my options, I figured that working with older adults was best for me. As a child, I always wanted to be a nurse. So, even though I went a different route, I'm still kind of like in the medical healthcare field.

Speaker 10:

My great grandmother had a stroke when I was 10 years old and so she was kind of like the pillar for me to want to be into the medical field. And so I was calling her little nurse when I was 10 years old and I was helping my grandmother give her her medication, just sitting in her um room, just talking to her, communicating with her. So I always had a thing for older adults. I think I understand them, they understand me. So that's how I was introduced. With a little push from my professor, she was like I think you, you know what you need to do that's right, that's right.

Speaker 10:

So that's what you should you like old folks, I like old folks, I'm old folks, I'm old, so I have an old soul. I don't want to be ages, but I do believe that I have an old soul and I do have that connection right, that's beautiful, you've been doing this, yeah, I've been doing this.

Speaker 1:

So the name of the program is improving care through improv. Did you see anything? Or were you exposed to anything at tonight's program when you're like you know what, that's hot. I think I'm gonna try to do that, or I'm gonna tell my clients you should try that technique, because improv is way better than what I was doing before definitely.

Speaker 6:

I saw a lot of um of ways that I would really like to see this program, or something like it, with people that I work with, because persons living with dementia. There are people who sometimes come to that field at different levels and they really don't have a lot of education regarding persons with dementia, but I feel like it was something useful that everyone, at any level of their education, can benefit from. Whether you're a CEO, a doctor, a CNA, I think that there's something everyone can learn from here. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you all so much. As a stand up comedian, as a stand up comedian living with my mom we were like in year 13 of her having Alzheimer's it just warms my heart to know that there are professionals in science who are willing to lean into improv as a way to engage clients. So thank you, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. The Parenting Up podcast will be looking for you all too. All right, spread the word.

Speaker 10:

Y'all know we keep it lit, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, it's over. I attended the program. It was so fantastic. So Georgia State University, dad's Garage, five or six other organizations came together to give us a program. It was half lecture and half watch. What these improv people are doing.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I mean, I'm a stand-up comedian. How could I not love that? On the real, though, as a family caregiver, I felt seen. I felt so seen in a way that normally doesn't happen.

Speaker 1:

There were researchers and scientists, people with PhDs in a multitude of areas, who actually have spent years putting together tests and studies and programs to prove scientifically that, yes, improv and improv techniques can actually make a caregiver's life better and it can make the caree's life better. I've been saying that for like 10 years, but I don't have a PhD and nobody believed me. But now I think, when I tell them about this stuff, I'm like yep, it's not just me, I ain't crazy. Y'all this was so dope. I can't wait. I can't wait, I can't wait to share even more. I think I'm going to put some of this in my stand-up. The Snuggle-Ups Number one hey, caregivers, there are scientists out there right now, even in 2025, fighting for us to figure out ways to make things easier for us Talent and technique.

Speaker 1:

Can you believe that, even at a time when, I mean, let's just call a spade a spade, we don't know where money is coming from, we don't know where research dolls are going, we're under attack from our own federal government, but it's people out here, nonprofits and private institutions who are like, get on our back, we're going to carry you through FCGs. Number two there are people going to school to major in. How can we make life better for old people? Ain't that great? Like I mean, gerontology is not what you hear people talking about anywhere. I mean in the street, on the airplane, at the coffee shop. When have you met somebody say you know what? I'm just trying to make sure I get my GMAT score up, get my SATs right so I can go be a gerontologist. Like, first of all, what the hell is it? Does everybody even understand? It is the study of how you age. I mean really age. You got to be like over 65. You can't just be getting older. We met and saw so many people of different genders, of different ethnicities who are right now, in this day and age, getting their undergraduate and master's in gerontology just to learn how we age and grow and live better. That is promising as hell. People want to say we're going to hell in a handbasket. I say no, I say drink some water, take a nap and wait for some of these young kids to fix this shit that we broke.

Speaker 1:

Number three Listen, it's tough on us out here right now. How are you feeling? Especially if you are a woman and double down if you are a woman of color. How are you doing? The world has a lot of anxiety, a lot of mistrust and a lot of dissension in it, which has nothing to do with your loved one. The political stuff that's going on, you know fires breaking out and planes crashing. How are you doing? Please stop, take a beat, take a breath. Whether it's a long, longer bath, or maybe you use your favorite lotion extra, go ahead, use it all up. Who gives a shit? I mean, somebody will figure out how to buy you some more next week.

Speaker 1:

The point is, there is so much stress that is happening in the world around us externally, you got to find a way to release it. How are you doing? Check in with yourself. You matter the most. If you didn't think so, jace Miles just told you yeah, hell, yeah, you matter the most. Yes, yes, you do. I said you do. I said you do, damn it. You matter even more than your LO. Fight me.