Humana Care Home

Dynamic lighting for Humana Nursing Home

Winner of the Swedish Light Award 2016

Humana’s nursing home in Gävle is a modern building with the latest technology, where the lighting plays an important role. Great care was taken to ensure the environment creates a sense of well-being, which can be seen in both the furnishings and the lighting. Much of modern research emphasizes the importance of adapting lighting to the user and the person who will be in the environment (Human Centric Lighting). A well-adapted living environment can affect the life span of an individual.

The flexible and dynamic lighting solution

This nursing home in Gävle is unique in Sweden as it is the first time that lighting is used to this extent to create dynamic environments that centre around the needs and health of the residents. Dynamic lighting helps to improve the residents’ health and perception of the time of day. It also helps to increase their level of satisfaction. High-quality and adapted lighting that creates a good atmosphere helps us to stay healthier and feel better. For example, the right lighting can make things easier for individuals with dementia and vision problems. Light is also important for stabilizing our internal rhythm, which helps us to feel better and achieve more.
Humana also felt it was important for the lighting to help create an environment that invites people to spend time together and creates a feeling of inclusion in order to break the isolation suffered by many of the residents.

To avoid a flat, white light, connecDIM is used as the control system so that light can follow and amplify the colour and changes of daylight. Together with LED modules from Tridonic and Welight with adjustable colour temperature (Tunable White), the brightness and colour temperature of the lighting can be changed during the day to follow the change of light outdoors and mirror the 24-hour cycle of a day. It is also possible to aim the lighting where activity is taking place.
The main requirements for the lighting were security, leading light, and dynamic indoor lighting, all of which had to work automatically. Some examples include the light coming on when a resident gets out of bed at night or falls out of bed. The lights are also to be used to lead the residents to the dining room when it is time for lunch and dinner, and then lead them back towards their apartments after the meal. When a schedule for the lighting that spans the day, the change of light is not noticed. It does not occur all at once, but instead occurs in intervals.
In the apartments, the headboards have an uplight that can be controlled over the course of the day. The residents also have the ability to switch this off. Under the headboards, there are also sensors that are activated between 21:00 and 07:00. If a resident gets out of their bed at night, a light scene leading the way to the bathroom comes on in the room. At the same time, the sensors of each apartment are linked to the staff’s portable phones, enabling them to provide assistance when needed.
To make it easy for the residents to change the lighting without disrupting the programmed schedules found throughout the property, there are panels and buttons from Bticino in the apartments with a number of preprogrammed scenes. Three pushbuttons with clear symbols have been set up. There, they can choose between the light scenes for Day, Morning/Evening and Night. Humana has a long contract duration for their nursing home. For this reason, they demanded lighting with a long service life and good quality that leads to less energy consumption. With LEDs and the connecDIM control system, specific wishes can be handled easily and data for readouts can be obtained. Energy consumption can be read off for each specific room and luminaire.
connecDIM enables wireless management via a cloud service so that the property’s lighting can be monitored remotely. It is possible to create schedules and view on/off times, sensor activity, etc. It is even possible to work with all programming for the lighting in the cloud tool.

Press Release: Humana, Gävle – winner of the Swedish Light Award!