Lighting up elderly homes

Owing to a lack of daylight and serious problems with memorization, a senile elderly person’s circadian rhythm is disturbed. For his MSc thesis, Loek Canton (26) developed a bright light that helps restore a natural sleep-wake rhythm.

Loek Canton helps senile elderly in getting their circadian rhythms back on track. (Photo: Tomas van Dijk)

Sufficient exposure to daylight normally restores the circadian rhythm, yet senile elderly people living in nursing homes often do not see much daylight in the first place. “What’s more,” says Loek Canton, “the aging eye requires even higher lighting levels.”

To help senile residents living in a nursing home in Amsterdam get their circadian rhythms back on track and enhance their moods and energy levels during the day, Canton developed a light table, which is a lightning system mounted in a translucent table. His table brings light efficiently into the residents’ eyes, more efficiently - Canton believes - than conventional light systems mounted on the ceiling.

“The bright light follows a dynamic pattern with varying intensity and colour temperature levels during the day,” says the young engineer who received a 9.5 grade for his thesis defence last week at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

The invention also includes objects – toys for instance that resemble animals - that alter the table edge ambient lighting when placed on the table. In this way the residents interact with the table and remain there for longer periods of time.
The project is in collaboration with Philips Lighting, the Free University of Amsterdam and Osira, a nursing home group.

At present a group of psychology students from the Free University of Amsterdam is testing the light table in an Osira nursing home in Amsterdam. According to Canton, the elderly involved in these tests seem to respond well: “They’re more awake and communicative while sitting at tables and the staff report that the participants are more at ease and relaxed during dinner.”

In March, Canton will present the test results at a special congress in Washington focusing on light and seniors, organized by the Illuminating Engineering Society.

The table for senile elderly people is not Canton’s first invention involving light: for his BSc degree, he invented a shower curtain with light emitting diodes inside that reveals how much water a person is using. “In the curtain you would see clouds that would slowly disappear and vanish when you had consumed a certain amount of water – which you can set prior to showering. 

This can be very practical in Australia, where people sometimes face water restrictions. You can see in the curtain if you have enough water left for rinsing all the shampoo out of your hair,” Canton says, laughing.