Comedians are being hired by the hour to help dementia patients. Their goal? ‘A full belly laugh.’

About a year after Dani Klein Modisett moved her mother from Manhattan to an Alzheimer’s care center near her Los Angeles home in 2016, she noticed that her mom, then 84, was sad and withdrawn.

Muriel Klein, once the life of the party (even with her memory loss), was no longer talkative or interested in food. She kept her head down and slept a lot.

“I was really upset, thinking, ‘What have I done? Why did I take her from everything she loved in Manhattan?’ ” Modisett said.

During a dental exam one afternoon, Modisett, an author and former stand-up comedian, tearfully told her dentist about her mother, saying she wished she could hire a comedian for her.

“Why don’t you?” her dentist replied.

Modisett went home and made a few calls, and soon she had hired a stand-up comedian to visit her mom eight hours a week.

The very first day, the comedian told Klein: “Some days, I don’t want to talk either, Muriel. When someone gets in my face, I think, ‘[expletive], do I look like I want to talk?’ ”

Klein repeated the expletive — a Yiddish word — laughing. Then she repeated it again. She lit up.

“After that visit, my mom became more engaged and started eating and laughing again,” said Modisett, who has taught comedy classes at the University of California at Los Angeles. “She felt that she was being seen.”

In early 2017, realizing that other seniors with memory loss could also benefit from some slapstick and one-liners, Modisett launched Laughter on Call, an organization that pairs comedians with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. The group also puts on laughter workshops and live comedy shows at care centers.

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Comedians are being hired by the hour to help dementia patients. Their goal? A full belly laugh

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Laughter on Call