VA Portland Health Care System, Research Service, Portland, OR 97239, USA.
Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2022 Jul 19;22(14):5372. doi: 10.3390/s22145372.
Sleep disturbances are common in older adults and may contribute to disease progression in certain populations (e.g., Alzheimer's disease). Light therapy is a simple and cost-effective intervention to improve sleep. Primary barriers to light therapy are: (1) poor acceptability of the use of devices, and (2) inflexibility of current devices to deliver beyond a fixed light spectrum and throughout the entirety of the day. However, dynamic, tunable lighting integrated into the native home lighting system can potentially overcome these limitations. Herein, we describe our protocol to implement a whole-home tunable lighting system installed throughout the homes of healthy older adults already enrolled in an existing study with embedded home assessment platforms (Oregon Center for Aging & Technology-ORCATECH). Within ORCATECH, continuous data on room location, activity, sleep, and general health parameters are collected at a minute-to-minute resolution over years of participation. This single-arm longitudinal protocol collected participants' light usage in addition to ORCATECH outcome measures over a several month period before and after light installation. The protocol was implemented with four subjects living in three ORCATECH homes. Technical/usability challenges and feasibility/acceptability outcomes were explored. The successful implementation of our protocol supports the feasibility of implementing and integrating tunable whole-home lighting systems into an automated home-based assessment platform for continuous data collection of outcome variables, including long-term sleep measures. Challenges and iterative approaches are discussed. This protocol will inform the implementation of future clinical intervention trials using light therapy in patients at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease and related conditions.
睡眠障碍在老年人中很常见，并且可能导致某些人群（例如阿尔茨海默病）的疾病进展。光疗法是一种简单且具有成本效益的干预措施，可以改善睡眠。光疗法的主要障碍有：（1）对设备使用的接受程度较差，以及（2）当前设备的灵活性不足，无法提供固定光谱之外的光线，也无法在一整天内提供光线。然而，集成到原生家庭照明系统中的动态、可调光照明可能会克服这些限制。在此，我们描述了我们的方案，以实施一种全屋可调光照明系统，该系统安装在已经参与具有嵌入式家庭评估平台（俄勒冈老龄化技术中心-ORCATECH）的现有研究的健康老年人的家中。在 ORCATECH 中，参与者的房间位置、活动、睡眠和一般健康参数的连续数据以每分钟的分辨率在多年的参与过程中进行收集。该单臂纵向方案在安装灯光前后的几个月内，除了 ORCATECH 的结果测量外，还收集了参与者的灯光使用情况。该方案在三个 ORCATECH 家庭中的四个参与者中实施。探讨了技术/可用性挑战和可行性/可接受性结果。我们方案的成功实施支持了将可调全屋照明系统集成到自动化家庭评估平台中，以连续收集包括长期睡眠测量在内的结果变量的可行性。讨论了挑战和迭代方法。该方案将为未来使用光疗法对有发展为阿尔茨海默病和相关疾病风险的患者进行临床干预试验的实施提供信息。
