14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) say that exposure to a certain type of light may benefit patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease and related forms of dementia (ADRD).
Oftentimes, these individuals sleep during the night, only to remain wide awake at night. This is very damaging to their bodies, and also contributes to decreasing their caregivers' quality of life.
The new study may have come up with a way of replicating this natural tendency that dementias trigger, by exposing ADRD patients to light during the night. If the approach is successful, then many of these people may return to their families, rather than being left in a nursing home.
Instances in which family members complain about irregular sleep patterns in their demented relatives are unfortunately very common, and these represent some of the main reasons why nursing homes are oftentimes chosen over family-based care.
It could be argued that improving ADRD patients' sleep patterns would make more families willing to take care of them, rather than institutionalize these seniors. The RPI team that came to this conclusion is based at the Lighting Research Center (LRC).
Experts here underline the importance of custom-tailored light exposure as a potential method for addressing sleep disorders in dementia patients. An interesting aspect of their study is that non-ADRD seniors may benefit from this type of therapy as well.
“We used light/dark and activity/rest patterns to assess circadian disruption and our results are consistent with previous studies,” explains researcher Mariana Figueiro, the leader of the new study.
“However, this is the first field study to examine the synchrony between the circadian light pattern and the activity response pattern to assess circadian disruption. Measurements revealed that those with ADRD experienced more circadian disruption than healthy older adults,” she adds.
Figueiro holds an appointment as an associate professor at RPI, and is also the director of the LRC Light and Health Program. Basically, she studies how exposure to light influences the human body.
Details of the new study, which was sponsored by the US National Institute on Aging (NIA), appear in a paper entitled “Field Measurements of Light Exposures and Circadian Disruption in Two Populations of Older Adults,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.