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While much of our world is bathed in light most of the time, the impact light has on us isn’t top of mind for most. Not so for Dr. Shelley James, a.k.a. the Light Lady, who has spent years studying the subject. When we spoke, she shared there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to lighting.
Our brains rely on light for a sense of time passing, and the gradual shift of the sun’s cool morning light to warm evening light largely regulates our circadian rhythm, impacting sleep, hormone production, metabolism and alertness. Yet many modern humans spend much of their time coexisting with artificial lights, and not always to our benefit.
According to James, “A little bit of light in the right place goes a long way, and a lot of light in the wrong place is really grim.” Light is a quality game not a quantity game, but we tend to focus on a number, i.e. how many lux a light emits, instead of focusing on how light makes us feel.
Light is a quality game not a quantity game, but we tend to focus on a number, i.e. how many lux a light emits, instead of focusing on how light makes us feel.
The use of light has been heavily explored for supporting the wellbeing and quality of life for people with dementia. This research has demonstrated support for mood, social interactions and communication, neuropsychiatric symptoms, rate of cognitive decline and sleep quality after receiving light at certain times. Studies have also shown a relationship between increased depression and agitation with reduced sunlight exposure, an effect known as “sundown syndrome” for those with dementia.
James shared the story of one example where engineers looked to see whether better lighting could help patients suffering from severe dementia. Kirk House in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has an award-winning dementia care unit called “Memory Lane” that agreed to trial a new technology from Chroma Lighting.
Chroma Lighting partnered with Kirk House on the use of intelligent LED lighting modules with low-energy networked Skyjoy sensors built in. The light has both cool and warm channels so the colour temperature and intensity can be adjusted throughout the day, and the centre of the device has a radar sensor that can monitor the 3D positional coordinates of patients over time. The device is also Bluetooth enabled to facilitate the various sensors talking to each other as well as being harvested for analysis on a local server at any time.
Additionally, the sensors can actively identify falls and send an alert to help carers respond quickly. The initial 16-week trial was conducted with 11 volunteers. After a 4-week baseline evaluation using the existing lighting conditions, the daylight simulating light was introduced for the following 12 weeks. The sensor collected critical nighttime sleep pattern information like total time spent in bed, the number of times a patient left the bed and how long nighttime disturbances lasted.
Algorithms from sensor data were calculated to look at daily activity patterns, rest-activity rhythm over 24 hours and the ratio of the most active 10 hours vs the least active 5 hours for each participant. This data gave insight into how well aligned the patient’s circadian rhythm was to the light-dark cycle.
Each week, carers completed a QUALIDEM report, which captures a quality-of-life scale for people living with dementia and gives wellbeing insight that can’t be captured by sensors. This report looks at wellbeing elements like the care relationship, positive affect, negative affect, restless behaviour, social isolation and feeling at home.
The sensor findings revealed that the average number of night-time disturbances decreased, as did the average length of those night-time disturbances. This meant the total amount of time spent in bed increased by 45 minutes from baseline for weeks 5 through 10 and by 27 minutes from baseline for weeks 10 through 16.
From the QUALIDEM survey, there was a statistically significant improvement from the baseline reports to weeks 5-10 in positivity (i.e. mood), social isolation (meaning less social isolation, with each individual spending more time in common areas) and sense of feeling at home.
Lynne Green, Deputy Manager of Kirk House, also likes to point out wider benefits beyond just the period residents are sleeping, noting they seemed more settled during the sundowning hours, they were more focused during daytime activities and staff felt their relationships with the residents improved during this time as a result.
Offices by comparison generally seem short on measurable success stories of this kind. Perhaps there is a lack of willingness to experiment, a reticence to invest or a nervousness to test. With the advent of smart building technologies, organisations will have ever increasing volumes of passively collected data to mine for insights to improve employee experience, and what we’ve seen in the work we’ve undertaken for our clients in this area has been nothing short of illuminating.