Envision this: Within two years of a correctional facility's construction, staff and inmate attitudes have soared; construction and operational costs have been reduced; security and conditions of confinement have improved; and the facility's presence has improved area property values, boosted local business and become a symbol of community pride. Pipe dream? [...]
After years of trying to bring proper light to an English prison, Michaele Wynn-Jones, asks why the authorities seem content to subject people to such glare and gloom. Imagine living up to 23 hours a day in a confined space the size of the average bathroom complete with open toilet, under [...]
OBJECTIVE: About 5% of pregnant women meet criteria for major depression. No pharmacotherapy is specifically approved for antepartum depression; novel treatment approaches may be welcome. The authors explored the use of morning bright light therapy for antepartum depression. METHOD: An open trial of bright light therapy in an A-B-A design was [...]
Prominent PMS researcher, Barbara Parry, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, recently established that premenstrual syndrome is related to light and that phototherapy can alleviate PMS symptoms. Dr. Parry identified a woman in southern California who has PMS only during the winter. Parry used specially designed lights to regulate [...]
Sunlight may reduce postoperative pain and need for pain-relieving medications. Scientists enrolled 89 patients who had spinal surgery into a study and randomly assigned the patients to rooms that were sunny or dimly lighted. Subjects in the lighter rooms received 46 percent more sunlight per day than those in the darker [...]
Executive Summary Yes! Light affects people in some surprising ways. Some would even go so far as to say that light is nutritious. In order to get a firmer grasp on some of these effects of light on people, a study of the effects of light on children of elementary school [...]
Sir, - The number of days children at the Green Street Elementary School, Brattleboro, Vermont, were off sick fell significantly after distorted spectrum fluorescent (DSF) was replaced by full-spectrum fluorescent (FSF) light. As an experiment the DSF light in three classrooms at this school, where pupils are 5-9 years old, was [...]
A study with five 30 wt Indoor Sunshine®® CFLs suggests an increase in immune system function in 30 days. In 7 out of 9 subjects, blood tests showed a 22-79% increase in the most common white blood cells, the Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC). One subject went down 1% and one went [...]
Phototherapy is the most common treatment for reducing high bilirubin levels that cause jaundice in a newborn. In the standard form of phototherapy, your baby lies in a bassinet or enclosed plastic crib (incubator) and is exposed to a type of fluorescent light that is absorbed by your baby's skin. During [...]
OBJECTIVES: Our purpose was to evaluate the benefits of cycled light (CL) versus near darkness (ND) on health in preterm infants born at <31 weeks' gestational age. STUDY DESIGN: Randomized, interventional study comparing infants receiving (1) CL from birth, (2) CL at 32 weeks' postconceptional age (PCA), and (3) CL at [...]