Systematic study of the therapeutic impact of daylight associated with clinical recovery

Daylight appears to be one of the most important visual and sensual elements of hospital environment for patients ’ health and wellbeing and is often given insufficient priority by researchers, due to its versatility and far-reaching but complex implications. The information related to daylight in hospitals is spread over a wide range of articles and research reports done by either biologists or researchers of therapeutic built environment. Therefore, it is difficult for daylight researcher to link these two and get a complete picture of the possible influences of therapeutic daylight. This paper is aimed at compiling and arranging the findings of two research groups in a line to explore how daylight impacts on patients ’ health and recovery gradually from light incident on patients ’ eye or skin, to the evidences of patients ’ health outcomes in hospital environment. The findings from literature review will strengthen the foundation of researchers who want to investigate the effect of daylight on clinical recovery and intend to design therapeutic daylit hospital buildings.