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FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS
The lights built for Lauren and others have, by their nature, been prototypes. While substantial improvements have been made since they were first built in 1996 the 2003 design was a reasonable compromise for Lauren between adequate phototherapy for her and comfort and acceptability.
It has always been recognised that significant improvements of the unit design are achievable. With Lauren requiring only about one hour of phototherapy per day, even significant improvements would only reduce the daily phototherapy time by minutes. Our major motivation has been on ensuring that the actual time spent in the lights is as enjoyable as possible for Lauren.
It is likely that some CNS people would receive adequate phototherapy by using the unit as described for between 5 and 10 hours each week. There are people with the most serious form of CNS who have no enzyme activity. For them the phototherapy time required must be longer. In one such case an eleven year old using the 2003 design required 2 hours per day during summer and 3 hours per day during winter. Such cases justify the design and trial of further improvements.
The 2003 version of this web site suggested a number of areas for improvement. Many of these have been implemented in the 2005 design bringing about significant further improvements in the effectiveness of the phototherapy.
Further design development work is taking
place. Improvements likely to further reduce day phototherapy
time centre round the use of blue LEDs either to supplement or
possibly replace the role of fluorescent tubes. If day phototherapy
for people with no enzyme activity can be reduced to about 2 hours
per day this would provide a significant benefit.
Copyright 2006.