A dementia perspective: interactive workshops highlighting integrative lighting preferences from a dementia cohort

The CIE’s 2024 Position Statement centres around the ipRGC’s requirements for lighting. However, it also states how these requirements are tailored towards healthy middle-aged adults and do not consider aging populations with diverse needs. People living with dementia can experience cognitive decline, sundowning, suppression in melatonin and disruptive sleep which negatively impacts their wellbeing. Their lighting demands must therefore be considered more carefully, but often they are excluded from these conversations. This paper presents ongoing workshops on integrative lighting preferences for this cohort. A minimum of 15 persons will participate in interviews about their interactions with light. A luminaire with tuneable white, dimmable LEDs will allow participants to choose their preferred illuminance and CCT at a specific time of day in order to produce inter-individual comparisons. Group comparisons with integrative lighting for healthy middle-aged adults are also conducted to assess how well current guidelines can be extrapolated for this cohort.