Lighting Plays a Healing Role in Modern Behavioral Healthcare Facilities

Behavioral health facilities depend on lighting to provide a safe and secure environment while maintaining a residential atmosphere for the patient. Nearly gone are the unfortunate decades-old perceptions of behavioral health facilities as cold, prison-like institutions with concrete walls, bars on windows, and the ever-present buzzing of flickering fluorescent panel lights. Modern behavioral health facilities are warm and inviting, the anti-septic clinical feel replaced by a more human-centric atmosphere complete with architectural quality designs. Light fixtures in mental health treatment and residential facilities must also meet industry standards for dimming requirements, color temperature, and circadian rhythm features, allowing the environment to have a more home-like atmosphere. The safety of the patients and the staff are also a priority, so behavioral health light fixtures must comply with stringent standards such as tamper resistant fasteners, anti-ligature designs, gapless installation, and shatter proof lenses, which maximize safety for those within a behavioral health facility.

As the medical community has furthered its knowledge of the impact of light on health and behavior, it is now commonly accepted that both naturally occurring light and man-made light are components of a healthy and stable life for individuals afflicted with mental health disorders. Numerous medical studies have reported that patients exposed to healthy levels of natural light are discharged days earlier than those who spent more time in poorly lit environments.

Color Hues Promote Healing and Reduce Agitation

Color has also been connected to mood and behavior control. Walls are often painted in select colors to enhance the available natural light to reduce the chance of patients with conditions bipolar disorder or individuals who experience psychosis from becoming agitated. Brightness, intensity, and the color of light can also trigger agitation in some behavioral health patients. Other patient ailments can also be mitigated by proper lighting application. Vision issues can be addressed with cool, or blue, light as opposed to warm lighting. Research indicates cool light temperatures can also reduce violent impulses, and these hues are often found in mental health spaces where behavior control is a requirement.

KURTZON™ behavioral health lighting provides durable, industry-standard compliant light fixtures designed for the color control required for behavioral health facilities. KURTZON™ offers a variety of recessed behavioral lighting options that are dimmable to 1% standard are anti-ligature with tamper-resistant hardware and have shatterproof lenses to provide a safe and secure environment to promote mental health wellness.