How light and occupational therapy intervention could fight some psychogeriatric symptoms

Abstract

Purpose: Aggregated results of systematic reviews separately show how light used as a treatment and some occupational therapy interventions could have a positive impact on psychobehavioural disorders in older people. Since the beginning of June 2014 the Walloon Government has been financing a project which consists of a non-pharmacological approach that combines light and occupational therapy for a psychogeriatric population with specific symptoms: spatial and temporal disorientations, apathy, depression, agitation, anxiety, confusion and circadian disorder. The objective of this abstract is to expose the assumptions that the combination of two different light devices and one specific occupational therapy program could have an impact on the different symptoms of a psychogeriatric population. Methods: To build our hypothesis, two literature reviews have been achieved. The first one concerning the use of light as therapy gathered 30 studies while the other one about occupational therapy activities collected 35 articles. Results: Despite of a heterogeneity between studies dealing with light and occupational therapy, the combination of these two non-pharmacological interventions might fight the depressive syndrome, reduce the temporal disorientation thanks to a regularity in the period of activity, restore the circadian rhythm and so reduce some troubles that can be linked to them: sleep disorder, risk of fall, apathy, agitation, behavioural and cognitive troubles (attention, concentration). Moreover, one of the two light devices used which can modulate the light intensity according to the rooms might reduce the spatial disorientation if it’s employed as a landmark. Conclusions: Based on literature reviews and our experience into this field it’s seems that a non-pharmacological approach involving light and occupational therapy intervention could have a positive effect on symptoms of psychogeriatric population. In admitting that those effects are becoming true after experimentation and analyses, we can also expect an improvement of the quality of life