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Experimental design for evaluating the effect of lighting interventions on patients with Alzheimer's: A review
Author(s) -
Mathur Pegah,
Rider Traci Rose,
Place Wayne
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1002/alz.046786
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , disease , population , consistency (knowledge bases) , population ageing , gerontology , psychology , medicine , research design , computer science , risk analysis (engineering) , applied psychology , nursing , environmental health , artificial intelligence , pathology , social science , sociology
Background Alzheimer’s disease is expected to become a major public health problem in the U.S. for the aging population. It is projected that in 2050, 65% of the aging population will die of Alzheimer’s. This raises the questions of whether and how we are prepared to provide care for this growing population. In this regard, the built environment can have a crucial role in supporting care and cure processes for the disease. Among the environmental variables that impact the provision of care for Alzheimer patients, lighting is especially consequential as it is known as a non‐invasive cure method that can stimulate the circadian rhythm and mitigate the issues of sleeping disturbance and agitation. Nevertheless, previous experimental research on this topic is inconclusive since many studies failed to present important variables and strategies used in their experimental designs (e.g. characteristics of the lighting device, exposing light intensity and spectral quantity, time‐series design and frequency of the interventions, the amount of light entered into the subject’s eyes). Method This paper reviews the existing research on lighting and Alzheimer’s to develop a framework that gives structure to the design of experimental research on the effect of lighting interventions on Alzheimer’s patients (e.g. variables, contextual factors, control strategies). Result This framework can facilitate future research on this topic as it enables the researchers to improve the internal validity of their results by improving their research design. Furthermore, this proposed framework can lead to a consistency in defining and using variables, control factors, and applicable findings across different studies to facilitate replication of experimental studies and inform the researcher on the generalizability of the findings. Conclusion Furthermore, this proposed framework can lead to a consistency in defining and using variables, control factors, and applicable findings across different studies to facilitate replication of experimental studies and inform the researcher on the generalizability of the findings.