With thanks to Kate Turley, 1851 Royal Commission Industrial Fellow, for sharing this insight with Care Sector Hub.
Within the UK, there are an estimated 70% of people in care homes who have a diagnosis of dementia, costing the economy £23 billion annually. The largest contributor to this cost is staffing, particularly due to the rising turnover rates caused by excessive stress and exhaustion.
I am currently working on a digital health research project that aims to target the wellbeing and quality of life of both people living with dementia and care staff. Based out of a lighting design company named Chroma Lighting in Belfast, we have partnered with Ulster University to explore the benefits of dynamic lighting in care environments to help alleviate symptoms of dementia and to relieve strain on care staff.
This work has been generously supported by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. The aim of the research is to design and develop a dynamic lighting and sensing solution to monitor the daily activity of residents within a care home and to provide them with dynamic lighting suited to the needs of their body clock.
The body clock governs the times and mechanisms by which we wake, sleep, eat, release hormones and regulate body temperature. The main contributor which invokes this (approximate) 24-hour rhythm is natural daylight. Light is used to wake us in the mornings in a similar manner to how darkness is used to induce sleep; an evolutionary pattern that has become imprinted throughout our bodies.
A diagnosis of dementia disrupts the harmonious daylight vs sleep-wake cycles from their norm. Typically, people living with dementia will experience sundowning and restless nights. This disrupted sleep can also heighten poor mood and agitative behaviours known as behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSDs).
Since light is the primary excitor for optimising the body clock, it stands to reason that care homes for people with dementia should have lighting requirements that reflect this process. However, care homes are commonly reported to have sub-optimal lighting requirements for either visual demands and/or supporting the body clock. This is due to the fact that most indoor lighting is static in nature, simulating the same colour and intensity throughout the day. Since we know that daylight is dynamic in nature (changes in colour and intensity), there could be significant benefit to translating this lighting concept to the indoors.
The device set-up allows pervasive sensing of residents in a privacy-friendly manner – unlike a camera. Novel algorithms have been designed to track their location, time spent under different lighting environments, rest-activity patterns and sleep-wake cycles. This information is then studied over time to understand if there are any patterns in the lighting output and exposure durations/timings with certain BPSDs.
It is our goal to optimise the lighting output based on each individual’s body clock demands in order to best support their mood, sleep-wake cycles and wellbeing. The spin-off effect this will have on care staff is also very promising. Not only has dynamic lighting been proven to improve mood and alertness in care staff, but the sensing metrics that are collected will be shared with care home operators and staff alike so 
that they can view them in a mobile application and use them as a support to their care routines.
Access to these data insights could be a colossal motivator for the onboarding of large-scale care operators. Metrics on location trajectories, amount of people in a room and sleep disturbances could provide significant relief to the existing strain on day-to-day life by helping to support the organisation of the weekly rota, daily care routines, night shift patterns and even providing insight into building costs and energy efficiency.
