BELGIUM: Hologram technology revolutionises luminotherapy and promises to banish winter blues - launch of first happy glasses

Record ID: 822583

  • Title: BELGIUM: Hologram technology revolutionises luminotherapy and promises to banish winter blues - launch of first happy glasses
  • Date: 27th October 2006
  • Summary: FRANCOISE COLLIGNON TALKING TO PEOPLE INTERESTED IN THE LUMINETTE WOMAN TRYING ON THE GLASSES MAN'S EYES LIT UP BY THE GLASSES GLASSES IN A BOX
  • Embargoed: 11th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Science / Technology,Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVA2Y6XOQYPCFYHOJDTNOFHWRE8X
  • Story Text: Belgium has launched a new light therapy product designed to combat seasonal blues and which could revolutionise our way of life. Its called the Luminette and can be worn by all in any and every circumstances they find themselves.
    As autumn begins many people in the northern hemisphere complain of listlessness and fatigue increasingly identified with the gradual seasonal loss of light.
    Light therapy is based on the idea that waking up in the dark provokes the body into producing melatonin, a sleep hormone, which keeps our energy levels low throughout the day.
    The revolutionary Luminette promise to end that. Worn for half an hour in the morning the light sends messages to the brain fooling it into believing the sun is out. This in turn suppresses the body's secretion of melatonin thus kick starting the body clocks in the same way as a summer morning.
    Of course light therapy is nothing new and is being used extensively in Nordic countries and Canada where light is scarce in winter. But the old technology is uncomfortable and difficult to use. The light box immobilises patients for a long time in front of the static light source. The helmet, which is linked to a substantial battery box is heavy on the neck and back and impossible to walk around with as it blocks people's view completely.
    The Luminette however are light, sit comfortably above the eyes, can be worn with prescription glasses and do not hinder every day tasks. In other words people can put them on and ride the bus to work, read a newspaper, make breakfast. do the ironing or sit at their work terminals.
    Francoise Collignon of Forum Media Production introduced the light therapy glasses at a health forum in Brussels' EuroControl, the European air traffic control centre, which doesn't normally see much light.
    Asked what were their first impressions when wearing the futurist looking glasses reactions were uniformly bemused.
    "Ah..." says Grazia Giordane, project manager at EuroControl.
    Frenchman Christophe Hubert, a health and safety executive at EuroControl in France, just laughs.
    "Weird!" howls Bregieta Stoop after trying them on.
    "Its a bit of a strange look. Its a bit like a martian or looking like a martian. Its not really common these days," says Belgian Dominique Aubry of EuroControl's finance department.
    "Well listen its a kaleidoscope ride for me right now," jokes Hubert.
    "Yes it it does. Yes it does. Yes, it does work," says British Paul O'Reily of the AIRAC support team at EuroControl who uses light therapy regularly.
    "Weird! howls Dutch Bregieta Stoop.
    "Yes...well" says Belgian Grazia Giordane, still not convinced.
    "Its more of a Japanese thing than an Italian thing," says fashion conscious Italian Riccardo Massacci, a trainee at EuroControl.
    "Weird!" Howls Bregieta Stoop.
    "If I were on my own, wearing these, maybe people would be a bit surprised and ask themselves 'who is this walking christmas tree, going around with these glasses on," jokes Hubert.
    "Weird!" howls Bregieta Stoop.
    "They are a little bit too futuristic for me (laughing)," Grazia Giordane finally decides.
    "Well now I can see you better now" jokes Aubry after taking them off.
    However proponents of the Luminette say they should not be seen as a mere gadget or fashion item, however cool they might look. Francoise Collignon, who introduced them to the staff of EuroControl and is selling them for Lucimed, the distributors in Belgium, says Luminette are a serious medical aid which should neither be abused or taken lightly.
    The new technology behind them took 4 to 5 years to develop at Liege University Physics department whose brief was to create something that would effectively direct light rays into the retina by means of a contraption which was easy to wear and light on people's wallets.
    Vincent Thoreau, together with his mentor Professor Yvon Regnotte, led the research. They began by shining a red beam of light through an initial prototype lens.
    Thoreau shows that the light is concentrated in one area representing the eye. But what they needed to find was a way of diffracting the light so as to ensure it always hit the retina whatever the eye's movement.
    They also had to direct the light in such a way so as not to blind the wearer by concentrating the beam on the part of the eye which does not correspond to vision.
    And the answer lay in holograms which diffract the light source to exactly the point you want it to go to.
    "We managed to find a system which allows us to place the light source outside of the field of vision but which brings back the rays towards the useful areas of the retina thanks to a difractive component. Therefore this will have 2 effects: the effect of deviating the rays and second effect to focalise them through the pupil on the retina," says Thoreau.
    Small but intense light nodes were then placed above the holograms in a light spectacle frame. Thoreau says the most effective light to act on the brain is blue light but that too much of it can negatively affect the patient. Therefore the nodes include green and orange to make the product safe.
    Furthermore, unlike light boxes, the Luminette do not emit dangerous UV rays according to Collignon and are a safe and natural way to combat SAD.
    At a diet therapy store in Brussels where she is selling the glasses to help people eat less Collignon says the holographic innovation not only diffracts the light source but also send a more concentrated level of rays into the retina making the luminotherapy more effective. Light boxes normally put out rays of 10,000 lux. The glasses concentrate more light in the eye with just 2,000, which is also more comfortable for the patient.
    "We are trying here to optimise the effect of light. Normally we needed 10,000 lux. Why do we only need 2,000 lux here well because, and this took 5 years of experimenting and research at the Liege university, physics engineers thought about putting a hologram in front of the light and this is what is at the basis of the whole concept. So it's a hologram placed on a plastic shield, there is a layer of resin inlaid with the help of a laser ray, to create a whole series of small lentils which increase the amount of light rays at the level of the eye," Collignon says.
    Light therapy can be used in the alleviation of other health problems besides SAD. It can also be used in parallel with drug therapies in the treatment of more serious and non-seasonal depressions by enhancing the effect of the drugs.
    "They were first used for seasonal depression (SAD) but now they are also being used for non-seasonal depression, for chronic fatigue in multiple sclerosis, for pre-menstrual symptoms, for tiredness related to post-natal depression. So there are a lot of areas they can be applied to as well of course as jet lag and people who jump across time zones and who need to reacclimatise to a new time," Collignon says.
    Back at Eurocontrol our testers are asked once more what they think of the glasses following a long explanation of how they work
    Christophe Hubert, who works at Eurocontrol's health and safety department in Bretigny, France, says the glasses could be good for fatigued workers, especially those who work in a dark environment such as the european flight control centre. But he needs proof that they work.
    Claude Hantz, from the same department is less skeptical.
    "Its true that employers are more worried these days, in a more general way, about the health and safety of workers in relation to stress at work or in their private life. All these things have an influence and they can't be separated and if it works (the glasses) if there is proof that it works then why not. Obviously. Now we need to prove it," says Hubert.
    "Yes I find that people don't have the same energy at the moment, for example, in October. It looks like its a difficult period to live through, people are tired, they have problems in the morning, they come in as if they had been boxing all night long. So yes I think we need to re-generate ourselves with this kind of machine," says Hantz.
    Many workers starting early and leaving the workplace late in northern Europe never get to see the light as in the case of EuroControl which has no windows.
    According to therapists this can worsen SAD syndrome which themselves can lead to depression, eating disorders, tiredness and lack of motivation.
    Marion Verzuu, who helped explain how the glasses worked to EuroControl's staff, is confident that once people get over the futuristic look of the glasses they will use them and feel the benefits quickly.
    In fact she even thinks the design is a plus which might explain why Lucimed have seen high sales in Belgium, Germany and Finland.
    "Well its in fact very modern because its high technology. At the beginning they are a bit surprised but I am sure that soon we'll see everybody wearing these glasses whilst wearing these glasses," says Verzuu.
    Lucimed will be launching the Luminette in the Netherlands soon and hope to expand in Canada and the United States.
    Luminette: technology of the future for a better life tomorrow? Or just a passing fad?. You decide.
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