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Lighting and ventilation


The wellbeing benefits of natural light and ventilation


Daylight has been shown to have a beneficial effect on wellbeing, helping to reduce the average length of a hospital stay. Scott Leeder, commercial director at Velux Modular Skylights, looks at how to access these benefits


A number of independent peer reviewed studies have provided compelling evidence that access to plenty of natural daylight can result in patients being discharged from hospital sooner. In his insightful report, The Distinctive Benefits of Glazing, Professor David Strong brings many of these studies together and presents them as a compelling case for the benefits of daylight.


One of these studies concludes: “A significant relationship appears to exist between indoor daylight environments


and a patient’s average length of stay (ALOS) in a hospital. Twenty five per cent of the comparison sets showed that, in the brighter orientations, as in rooms located in the SE (south east) area, the ALOS by patient was shorter than that in the NW (north west) area by 16-41 per cent. Further, no dataset showed a shorter patient ALOS in the NW area than in the SE.” The report went on to show that “high illuminance in the morning seemed to be more beneficial than in the afternoon”.1


In 2006, a retrospective study by Anjali Joseph2


of myocardial infarction


patients in a cardiac intensive care unit treated in either sunny or dull rooms, found that female patients spent less time in sunny rooms (2.3 days in sunny rooms; 3.3 days in dull rooms). Mortality in both sexes was consistently higher in dull rooms (39/335 dull rooms; 21/293 sunny rooms).


Joseph goes on to report that at least 11 strong studies suggest that bright light is effective in reducing depression in patients with bipolar or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Most of the studies examine the impact of artificial bright light on reducing depression; artificial light treatments usually range from 2500-10,000 lux.3


The treatment


is believed to effectively suppress the onset of melatonin; daylight is essential in ensuring that the chemical messengers melatonin and serotonin are produced at the right time of day. Daylight has also been shown to reduce the need for pain relief and has a major influence on depression and depressive illness. For example, Lovell reports the beneficial effect of bright light treatment on agitated behaviour in elderly people.4


Other research states


that inpatients with bipolar depression in east facing rooms (exposed to bright light in the morning) spent an overage of 3.67 days less in hospital compared to patients in west facing rooms. This again supports the view that bright light in the morning is more effective at reducing the symptoms of depression than exposure to bright light in the evening.5 In the report, Designing for Alzheimer’s


High levels of natural light and ventilation are the hallmarks of Tree Top Village in Newcastle; this has been achieved through the extensive use of modular skylights


January 2019 • www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


Elizabeth Brawley shows that the physical environment strongly influences behaviour and quality of life in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia as well as in those affected by age-related change. It also shows that physical surroundings help to prevent and manage


Disease,6 37


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