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OUR BEST CLIENT IS AN EDUCATED CLIENT
Look through the evidence from hundreds of scientists and see how important “lighting controlled sleep”© is to your health and wellbeing.
Trust the Team at Healthy Senior Lighting and get the products and support you need for better light, better sleep, better health, better you!
Summary
Seniors have specific issues impacting their health and wellbeing. These include Fall Risk, Insomnia/Sundowning, depression, engagement, Cachexia (Wasting away/Loss of appetite), and more. All of these negatively impact the lives of Seniors and increase the expense of their care. As Seniors spend 97% of their lives indoors, they don’t get natural sunlight to control sleep/wake or “Circadian” cycles, creating and contributing to negative physiologic and neurologic outcomes. This is exacerbated by the extensive yellowing of the lenses in the eye as we age. Installing lighting programmed to replicate the natural cycle of daylight during the day and firelight at night can restore the natural circadian/Sleep wake cycle, on which over 80% of your cells function, with significant health and wellbeing benefits.
Research has shown when circadian cycles are controlled with proper lighting the results are:
- Fall Risk is significantly reduced
- Sundowning/Senior Insomnia can largely be reduced, providing enormous benefits to Seniors AND their Caregivers
- Depression can be reduced, potentially decreasing the necessity of Fall Risk Increasing Drugs (FRID’s) like Benzodiazepine and Trazadone
- Improved Circadian/Sleep-Wake cycles improves Insulin and Metabolic Regulation
The following is a partial summary of the research available:
A General Description of the connection between Light and Health
Expert Opinions:
“Light affects our circadian rhythms more powerfully than any drug.”
Charles A. Czeisler, MD, Director, Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School
“The primary human concerns with nighttime lighting include … potential carcinogenic effects related to melatonin suppression, especially breast cancer. Other diseases that may be exacerbated by circadian disruption include obesity, diabetes, depression and mood disorders, and reproductive problems.”
– American Medical Association official statement on nighttime lighting.
“Many studies have found that lighting has a significant biological effect – impacting sleep, alertness, and many other physiological functions.”
– Louis Sullivan, MD – Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
“Light affects our circadian rhythms more powerfully than any drug.
– Charles A. Czeisler, MD, Director, Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Enter your email to gain access to our Research Summaries with hundreds of Studies on the impact of light on health, wellbeing, and vitality. Sign up for our newsletter and be informed as additional research is released. Research Topics available include:
- Reducing Fall Risk.
- Depression and Anxiety.
- Impact on Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease, and other neurological diseases impacted by lighting.
- Health, Vitality, and Daytime Alertness.
- Memory and the Aging Brain.
- Cardiovascular Risk, and Diabetes.
- Weight Loss (Cachexia), Appetite, Wasting Syndrome.
- The connection between sleep and health.
Can Circadian/Sleep/Wake Cycles Radically Impact health and Vitality?
- “Circadian Rhythmicity is a feature of nearly every physiological, metabolic, and behavioral system, bringing a wide variety of biological systems under direct retinal control”. http://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/pdf/S0166-2236%2813%2900197-5.pdf
- The AMA – Light Pollution: Adverse Health Effects of Nighttime Lighting states that potential carcinogenic effects related to melatonin suppression, especially breast cancer. Other diseases that may be exacerbated by circadian disruption include obesity, diabetes, depression and mood disorders, and reproductive problems.
http://lowbluelights.com/doc/ama.pdf - Numerous studies link suppressed melatonin production to an increased risk of cancer.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627884/ - Exposure to light at 6500K induced greater melatonin suppression, together with enhanced subjective alertness, well-being, and visual comfort. With respect to cognitive performance, the light at 6500K led to significantly faster reaction times in tasks associated with sustained attention.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016429
Depression?
- Treatment with Light may improve mood, sleep, and hormonal rhythms in elderly patients with major depressive disorder:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PcyFr_cFv4Qjp3XBMZuRUTUdzJNeccep/view?usp=sharing - Poor Sleep may lead to neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Dementia:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10r1mP84UHsMbC53im6xOFoDiABUKlHQ1/view?usp=sharing
Cardiovascular Risk?
- The circadian (sleep/wake) system modulates numerous cardiovascular risk markers at rest as well as their reactivity to exercise, with resultant profiles that could potentially contribute to the day/night pattern of adverse cardiovascular events.”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nJvzqFxBlPinLUwXt8CdOfEH-WFLyaer/view?usp=sharing - Older patients need more sunshine (higher kelvin light) to reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511090940.htm
Memory and the Aging Brain?
- Light stimulates thinking and alertness: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q6y4elEZJlgYl1wI86DbQuk1AHgJmKfQ/view?usp=sharing
- Sleep requires total darkness or memory is negatively affected.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep36731 - Light Therapy may slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons, Alzheimers, and Dementia:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PenfR_IIICRw9lGi6IpRV3nwvaAv7Cz-/view?usp=sharing - Sleep wake regulation affects memory
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26861410 - Better sleep improves memory
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Brain-deterioration-sleep-woes-linked-4253515.php - Time-of-day modulations [through light] affect performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks measuring attentional capacities, executive functioning, and memory.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18066734 - Light impacts health outcomes, reducing depression, reducing agitation with dementia patients, and easing pain
http://www.healthdesign.org/sites/default/files/CHD_Issue_Paper2.pdf - High Kelvin Lighting reduces fatigue in brain injury patients
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24213962
Weight Loss?
- Better Sleep improves weight loss
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/10/08/2010/to-sleep-perchance-to-slim.html - Increased obesity fuels lower quality sleep
http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/69.short
Long Term Care/Alzheimers/Dementia?
- “Tailoring intensity, spectrum, timing, duration and distribution of light has great potential to serve as a non-pharmacological tool to help AD [Alzheimers Disease] patients consolidate their rest/activity patterns and sleep better at night, which will also promote health and well-being of their caregivers. A typical 3000k fluorescent lamp has no significant ability to suppress melatonin and CBT despite intensity. Low levels of 500 nm, or blue light, have significant impact.
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/lightHealth/pdf/spectralSensitivity.pdf - Light impacts health outcomes, reducing depression, reducing agitation with dementia patients, and easing pain
http://www.healthdesign.org/sites/default/files/CHD_Issue_Paper2.pdf - Alzheimers patients need light Therapy, not medication to sleep. Problems caused by circadian rhythm disruption, or “sundowning”, include increased risk of fall related injuries and the difficulty in caring for patients during the night due to increased nocturnal activity. The latest research in lighting gives hope for a non-medical solution.
http://www.best-alzheimers-products.com/light-therapy-for-alzheimers.html - Can bad lighting cause bad sleep that raises the risk of Alzheimers?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/03/us-alzheimers-sleep-idUSKBN0EE26E20140603 - Light Therapy may slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons, Alzheimers, and Dementia:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PenfR_IIICRw9lGi6IpRV3nwvaAv7Cz-/view?usp=sharing
Sexual Differences?
Women need more sleep than men. A study of 210 middle-aged men and women found that women officially need more sleep than men and that a lack of sleep leads to greater health issues in women than in men. Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University, said: “We found that for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with high levels of psychological distress and greater feelings of hostility, depression, and anger.
- Light Exposure before bedtime suppresses melatonin, resulting in a later melatonin onset in 99.0% of individuals, shortening melatonin duration by about 90 min. Light exerts a profound suppressive effect on melatonin levels and shortens the body’s internal representation of night duration. Hence, chronically exposing oneself to electrical lighting in the late evening disrupts melatonin signaling and could therefore potentially impact sleep, thermoregulation, blood pressure, and glucose homeostasis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047226/ - High Kelvin Lighting suppresses the nocturnal fall of body temperatures
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8979406