Seniors and Lighting: Surprising Ways to Help Stay Safe in the Home and Improve Mental Well Being

Have you ever considered that your home's lighting and access to sunlight could affect your health and safety as you age? Or, if you are a migraine sufferer, that the lighting in your home could be causing those migraines.

I recently attended a webinar that discusses many things that can affect seniors. Steve Gurney hosts these talks and founded the Positive Aging Community. Many interesting topics are addressed to promote healthy aging and address senior issues. His guests provide a wealth of knowledge and are experts in their fields. While Steve focuses on older adults, many of the conversations could apply to everyone. I highly recommend watching the YouTube video on Positive Aging Community called Healthy Lighting for Older Adults. Click Here. In this webinar, David Thompson of Healthy Senior Lighting details studies showing that lighting, or lack thereof, can affect our health and/or mental state.

He gives us ways to develop better home lighting for our mental and physical safety. David discusses simple, inexpensive ways to modify your lighting & gives specifics on his preferences on what to get for your home.

Here is a summary of what is discussed in the video.

The talk discusses the impact of light on aging and how proper lighting can benefit seniors. David mentions that fluorescent lighting is bad because it loses half of its light output over time and causes color shifts. He suggests retrofitting fluorescent lights with LED lights to save energy and provide better light quality. Proper lighting can lead to better health, vitality, and quicker recovery after health issues. David suggests that anyone looking to replace fluorescent bulbs should video lights at a store to check for flicker and Kelvin rating and recommends buying LED lights with 6,500 Kelvin. He also recommends putting a separate task light in the kitchen to avoid having too much light before bedtime. Overall, proper lighting can significantly improve the lives of seniors and is a simple and affordable solution.

Key Takeaways

Sleeping 7-8 hours per night, no matter what your age, can Reduce

• Risk of Cancer & Disease

• Diabetic risk

• Heart Attack, Strokes, Blood Pressure

• Heart Health, Depression, Anxiety, Memory

• And Aid in Weight Loss

Proper lighting, whether at home or in a senior care community, can

• Reduce Sundowning, Fall Risk & Depression

• Increase Vitality

• Slow Neurodegenerative decline

• Improve Safety

  One of my favorite stories David tells is at 14:40 in the video. His installers at a memory care community told him his lighting was “hocus pocus”. On the first day of the job, the installers found the residents zombie-like, staring into space and falling asleep in their chairs. On day 2, the residents were “bugging the mess out of the installers” The residents were asking questions and messing with the materials. The installers told David, “You woke these people up.”

My hope is you will learn and implement some of his suggestions and that they make a difference in your or your loved ones’ lives. Again, view the full video, Healthy Lighting for Older Adults. To see more topics on aging from the ProAging Network, click HERE

Key Points

• The importance of lighting for seniors is a topic of interest for many professionals in different fields, including healthcare, lighting design, and interior design.

• Seniors spend 97% of their time indoors, and their yellowing lenses result in losing 19 out of 20 parts of their vision by age 90, increasing fall risk.

• Natural light exposure can reduce depression, improve memory and resistance to cancer, and significantly impact the health of seniors living in care facilities.

• The circadian rhythm is a 24-hour cycle that controls the sleep-wake cycle and the release of hormones, and seniors need bright light to read, watch TV, and perform various activities.

• The color temperature of light can impact mood, energy, and alertness, and seniors need access to light that mimics natural sunlight.

• Too much blue light at night can disrupt the circadian rhythm and lead to sleep deprivation. Using lights with a color temperature of 2700K-4000K is suggested, depending on the time of day and activity.

• Lighting that is not too bright or too dim can promote a healthy circadian rhythm for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia, and uniform lighting can reduce the risk of falls.

• The harmful effects of blue-enriched light on sleep can be reduced by maintaining a consistent daily schedule, reducing blue light exposure before bedtime, and avoiding caffeine intake in the afternoon.

• Flicker, a lighting effect, triggers migraines and headaches in about one-third of migraine sufferers, increases neurologic agitation, and causes malaise.

• Glasses that block about 80-85% of blue light, under-the-bed lights that turn on a low Kelvin light when motion is detected, and lighting around door frames at night are recommended for seniors to lower fall risks, reduce depression and dementia-based outbursts, and improve safety and work environments.

• The Center for Medicare Services is expected to require this type of lighting for seniors in home health care. Companies are developing products specifically for seniors to eliminate problems with the programming and timing of the lights.

I hope you found this useful and as always, if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me.