Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Tuned lighting helps nursing home residents get better sleep, study finds



https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/bu-tlh100620.php


News Release 6-Oct-2020
Brown University

Nursing home residents tend to fall asleep at all hours of the day, and during the night, their sleep may be interrupted by periods of wakefulness.

It's a vicious cycle of fragmented sleep that can place residents at risk for poor health outcomes, including depression and increased frailty, said Rosa Baier, an associate professor of the practice in health services, policy and practice who directs the Center for Long-Term Care Quality & Innovation at the Brown University School of Public Health.

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Prior research had found that nursing home residents likely receive too little light during the day and too much at night. So the researchers randomly assigned corridors where a total of 63 long-term care residents experienced either tuned or static lighting conditions for two months, then switched the corridors to the other lighting. The tuned lighting brightened corridor lighting in the day and dimmed it during the night. The static condition mimicked the fluorescent lighting in place at the facility prior to installation of the tunable fixtures. The study spanned the period of December 2018 through March 2019.

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The study found that, on average, the residents experienced 3.6 nighttime sleep disturbances with static lighting compared to 1.8 with tuned lighting. Baier said the results weren't wholly surprising given the research team hypothesized the intervention would have a positive effect on sleep.

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