BIOS Expertise on Circadian Lighting and Senior Living
Caring for older adults in senior living or memory care facilities presents unique challenges, especially related to disrupted sleep-wake cycles. Many residents, particularly those with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, spend most or all of their time indoors and away from natural light cues. Unfortunately, traditional electric lighting does not provide the critical sky-blue light signals required to maintain healthy circadian rhythms—the biological clock that governs sleep, alertness, mood, and metabolism.
Without access to proper lighting during the day and true darkness at night, many residents remain in a state of “biological twilight”—not fully awake during the day and not fully able to wind down at night. This disruption can lead to sleep disorders, agitation, depression, nighttime wandering, and cognitive decline. BIOS SkyBlue™ integrated lighting and SkyView™ tile lighting bring daytime-like sky-blue light indoors during the day and dims to circadian-friendly levels at night, supporting healthier sleep patterns, alertness, and emotional stability in older adults.
Benefits of Circadian Lighting for Aging Adults
Circadian lighting is designed to mimic the natural light-dark cycle that our bodies evolved with. It supports daily rhythms of melatonin and cortisol, hormones essential to sleep and wakefulness, respectively. By delivering strong, blue-enriched (melanopic) light during the day and warm, low-intensity light at night, SkyBlue™ and SkyView™ lighting helps senior living residents stay awake and alert during the day—and fall asleep more easily at night.
This approach not only benefits the residents’ health and safety, but it also eases the burden on staff, who often struggle to manage sleep-deprived and disoriented patients.
Circadian Lighting for Reduced Sundowners Syndrome and Nighttime Wandering
Many residents with dementia experience sundowning, a condition where agitation and confusion worsen in the late afternoon or evening. Circadian misalignment is a known contributor. Clinical studies show that consistent exposure to blue-enriched light during the day helps reduce nighttime wandering, agitation, and depression in Alzheimer’s patients by providing a stronger day signal to the brain’s circadian center (Figueiro et al. 2014).
SkyBlue™ and its next-generation SkyView™ lighting deliver a 490 nm wavelength, optimized to activate melanopsin receptors in the eye, which directly influence the body’s internal clock. At Joe’s Club, a senior day facility in Melbourne, Florida, BIOS circadian lighting in the lounge helped reduce resident wandering and promoted calmer behavior.
Circadian Lighting Reduces Fall Risks
Falls are one of the most significant health threats for older adults in care facilities. Research shows that circadian lighting not only improves alertness and mood but can also significantly reduce falls. In a study by Grant et al. (2022), long-term care homes that installed dynamic, sky-blue enriched lighting systems experienced a 43% reduction in falls compared to facilities with standard lighting.
This improvement is likely due to enhanced visibility, better sleep, and improved daytime cognition and mobility. Circadian lighting offers a passive, cost-effective strategy to reduce fall-related injuries and hospitalizations.
Circadian Lighting Improves Mood and Alertness
Standard lighting systems are often left on at high intensity throughout the day, but they lack the specific spectral qualities needed to support the circadian system. In contrast, BIOS circadian lighting technology enhances daytime illumination with targeted sky-blue wavelengths, helping to boost serotonin and cortisol levels and improve mood, energy, and mental clarity (Viola et al. 2008; LeGates et al. 2014; BIOS 2023; Grant et al. 2023).
SkyBlue™ systems were successfully deployed in the geriatric emergency department at UC San Diego Health, where they not only supported patient alertness but also helped staff by improving visual clarity in critical care settings—helping with early detection of conditions like sepsis.
Circadian Lighting Improves Sleep Cycles
Sleep disturbances are among the most common and disruptive issues in senior living environments. Many facilities unintentionally exacerbate these problems by overusing bright lighting at night, which suppresses melatonin, and failing to provide adequate daylight exposure to promote natural wakefulness. Clinical studies show that circadian lighting can improve sleep efficiency and reduce the need for sedative and psychotropic medications in memory care residents (Figueiro et al. 2014). Circadian lighting allows for dimming in the evening to support a gentle wind-down period, promoting easier transitions to sleep for residents and relieving stress for caregivers managing evening routines.
Circadian Lighting for Improved Medication Tolerance and Regularity
A growing body of research underscores the vital connection between stable circadian rhythms and medication effectiveness in older adults. Many seniors struggle with medication adherence due to erratic sleep-wake patterns, confusion about dosing schedules, or behavioral disruptions related to poor sleep. Circadian lighting can play a critical role in addressing these issues by reinforcing consistent rest-activity rhythms, which support both cognitive clarity and biological readiness for medication processing.
A recent randomized, crossover study published in GeroScience (Constantino et al., 2025) demonstrated that morning exposure to blue-enriched white light significantly improved circadian stability, reduced sleep fragmentation, and increased daytime activity in adults over 60. These findings are particularly relevant in senior care, where disrupted sleep cycles can negatively affect medication timing, tolerance, and efficacy.
Importantly, consistent light exposure during the morning hours helped advance bedtimes and strengthen daily rhythms, allowing caregivers to better coordinate medication routines with residents’ biological clocks. This alignment improves pharmacodynamics—how the body absorbs, distributes, and responds to medications—potentially reducing side effects and improving treatment outcomes (Sulley et al. 2018).
In practical terms, improved sleep means residents are more alert, cooperative, and responsive during medication rounds. It also allows medications administered at specific times—such as antihypertensives or cognitive enhancers—to be given when they are most effective. Additionally, minimizing evening light exposure, as highlighted in the GeroScience study, supports melatonin production and further improves sleep efficiency, compounding the benefits for overall health and therapeutic outcomes.
Circadian Lighting Benefits for Caregivers
Circadian lighting benefits not only elderly residents but also their caregivers, especially those working irregular shifts. A Danish nursing home study found that staff reported greater visual comfort, task visibility, and satisfaction when using a circadian lighting system compared to conventional lighting (Schledermann et al., 2023). Caregivers appreciated the ability to adjust lighting to meet both activity needs and resident preferences, reducing visual strain and stress. Additionally, caregivers working overnight shifts reported improved alertness and lower fatigue, which helps reduce errors and improve patient care. These findings align with broader evidence showing that blue-enriched daytime lighting enhances mood, energy, and cognitive performance among healthcare workers (Viola et al., 2008), suggesting that well-designed lighting environments can significantly reduce caregiver burden and improve occupational well-being.
BIOS Circadian Lighting for Senior Living and Elderly Care
BIOS SkyBlue™ and SkyView™ circadian lighting systems recreate the healthy melanopic light of sun and sky indoors, offering aging individuals and their caregivers a powerful tool to support healthier sleep cycles, brighter moods, and increased daytime alertness. By delivering biologically relevant sky-blue wavelengths during the day and minimizing disruptive light at night, these systems help stabilize circadian rhythms, reduce fall risks, and ease behavioral symptoms like agitation and sundowning.
- SkyBlue™ boosts the blue sky melanopic light while integrating seamlessly into existing fixtures for targeted wellness
- SkyView™ Tile is an easy one-for-one replacement for 2×2 ceiling fixtures with advanced, patented Gradient Circadian Optimization™ (GCO) technology that fuses the spectra of blue skies with warm sun to bring an experience that can only be matched outdoors.
Both solutions are energy-efficient, recreate natural light, and are designed to enhance resident well-being and caregiver efficiency in senior living settings. These lighting solutions create supportive environments that align with our biology and promote healthier, more dignified aging.
References
BIOS Lighting. Business at the speed of (circadian) light: A F500 Company Productivity Study. 2023.
Constantino DB, Lederle KA, Middleton B, Revell VL, Sletten TL, Williams P, Skene DJ, van der Veen DR. The bright and dark side of blue-enriched light on sleep and activity in older adults. GeroScience. 2025 Jan 17;47(3):3927.
Figueiro MG, Plitnick BA, Lok A, Jones GE, Higgins P, Hornick TR, Rea MS. Tailored lighting intervention improves measures of sleep, depression, and agitation in persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia living in long-term care facilities. Clinical interventions in aging. 2014 Sep 12:1527-37.
Grant LK, Hilaire MA, Heller JP, Heller RA, Lockley SW, Rahman SA. Impact of upgraded lighting on falls in care home residents. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. 2022 Oct 1;23(10):1698-704.
Grant LK, Crosthwaite PC, Mayer MD, Wang W, Stickgold R, St. Hilaire MA, Lockley SW, Rahman SA. Supplementation of ambient lighting with a task lamp improves daytime alertness and cognitive performance in sleep-restricted individuals. Sleep. 2023 Aug 1;46(8):zsad096.
LeGates TA, Fernandez DC, Hattar S. Light as a central modulator of circadian rhythms, sleep, and affect. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2014 Jul;15(7):443-54.
Schledermann KM, Hansen TS, Bjørner T. Perceived visual comfort and usefulness of a circadian lighting system implemented at a nursing home. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 2023 Feb;82(4):5253-69.
Sulli G, Manoogian EN, Taub PR, Panda S. Training the circadian clock, clocking the drugs, and drugging the clock to prevent, manage, and treat chronic diseases. Trends in pharmacological sciences. 2018 Sep 1;39(9):812-27.
Viola AU, James LM, Schlangen LJ, Dijk DJ. Blue-enriched white light in the workplace improves self-reported alertness, performance, and sleep quality. Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health. 2008 Aug 1:297-306.
