Behavioral Health Lighting by Visa Lighting

Lighting for Behavioral Health/High Abuse Spaces

When it comes to patient and staff safety, behavioral health/high abuse facilities need light fixtures that are tested and proven to perform to the highest standard in these specialty environments.

Our behavioral health/high abuse luminaires are engineered to meet the rigorous requirements of the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYS-OMH) and other industry recommendations. In the last several decades, behavioral healthcare has evolved dramatically – alongside our societal understanding of mental illness. Treatment objectives have changed from symptom control to patient-centered recovery. These changes permeate every element of behavioral health/high abuse facility design, including lighting.

View Behavioral Health/High Abuse Lighting Products

Symmetry – Patented Lens

Gig – Personal Task Light

Sanibel – Minimalist Over Vanity and Downward Task Lighting

  • Sanibel Balances Toughness with Beauty

    Visa Lighting’s engineers developed the Sanibel to provide lighting with a clean, modern architectural look, while meeting the requirements for behavioral health ligature and impact resistance. This luminaire features an easily cleaned, die cast aluminum housing with a frosted acrylic lens protected with high-impact resistant clear polycarbonate.

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  • Video: Sanibel Stands Up In High-Impact Testing

    The impact resistance testing regimen for Sanibel exceeded 100 joules over multiple impacts, and included a ligature resistance test after each impact making this robust luminaire ideal for behavioral health and high abuse setting.

    Application Photos

Sole – Illuminated Impact Resistant Mirror

Lenga – Overbed Slot Luminaires

Serenity – Perimeter Illumination

Patient-centered Design
Patient-centered Design

Patient-centered Design

Robust Yet Noninstitutional in Style

The Visa Lighting Behavioral Health/High Abuse lighting collection is engineered to be extremely robust with adequate ligature resistance and tamper-resistant fasteners. However, we also believe it is equally important that these specialized luminaires are beautiful, noninstitutional in style, and produce high quality illumination to best round out the design of patient-centered behavioral health spaces.

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Designing Luminaires for Behavioral Health

Design concepts from Visa Lighting Innovation Retreat for Behavioral Health
Design concepts for Gig, sketched during a Visa Lighting Innovation Lodge retreat with behavioral health specifiers

During product development, we reached out to specifiers of behavioral health applications to discuss their concerns. What we found was that, while architecture and interior design in these spaces have grown immensely in the last decade, luminaire product design has lagged behind the innovative curve. We sat down with specifiers to work together on new concepts that could match up to current aesthetic, performance, and safety standards.

  • Visage – Recessed Linear Luminaire

    Visage is a recessed linear luminaire with a minimal frame and multiple length options. Visage lighting can be mounted horizontally, vertically, wall mounted, or ceiling mounted. Visage features a clean, luminous diffuser, multiple length options, and a shallow recessed depth. With models for indoor, outdoor and behavioral health, this recessed linear luminaire is a lighting design staple. The beauty of Visage lies in its simplicity.

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    Visage – Recessed Linear Luminaire

    Visage is a recessed linear luminaire with a minimal frame and multiple length options. Visage lighting can be mounted horizontally, vertically, wall mounted, or ceiling mounted. Visage features a clean, luminous diffuser, multiple length options, and a shallow recessed depth. With models for indoor, outdoor and behavioral health, this recessed linear luminaire is a lighting design staple. The beauty of Visage lies in its simplicity.

    Product Page
  • The Beauty of Visage

    Create beautiful lines of light with the Visage family of linear slot lights. This architectural lighting staple creates clean lines and a contemporary design style. The Visage family offers beautifully framed, evenly illuminated diffusers with a shallow recessed depth in multiple lengths. Many experts suggest that a warm, homelike atmosphere with noninstitutional fixtures can prevent psychological stress and offer positive distraction.

    To view more inspiring Visage lighting ideas visit the gallery.

    Application Photos

    The Beauty of Visage

    Create beautiful lines of light with the Visage family of linear slot lights. This architectural lighting staple creates clean lines and a contemporary design style. The Visage family offers beautifully framed, evenly illuminated diffusers with a shallow recessed depth in multiple lengths. Many experts suggest that a warm, homelike atmosphere with noninstitutional fixtures can prevent psychological stress and offer positive distraction.

    To view more inspiring Visage lighting ideas visit the gallery.

    Application Photos

Product Testing: Impact-, Ligature-, and Tamper-Resistance

In order to qualify as suitable for high risk behavioral health/high impact areas, these luminaires underwent vigorous testing. Gig, our patient room task light, and Sole, our unbreakable mirror, are both IK10 rated. This means that they can withstand over 100 joules of impact without damage or loss of function. Thick polycarbonate on all our behavioral health/high abuse products protects the light sources while allowing illumination to shine through, and tamper-resistant hardware prevents the luminaires from being opened up or disassembled. The luminaire bodies and their assemblies have an anti-ligature design.

  • Video: Sole Product Testing

  • Video: Lenga (overbed) Visage

  • Video: Symmetry

  • Guide: Light Designing for Behavorial Health

Behavioral Health Blog Resources

Behavioral Health Design Resources

Behavioral Health Lighting

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Photo Spot

What's the difference between behavioral health and mental health?

These terms are often used to mean the same thing, but in the healthcare world, behavioral health is a more accurate umbrella term referring to many facilities that treat mental illnesses, as well as any other affliction that can prevent a patient from functioning, like addiction. Behavioral health inpatient facilities, including departments within general hospitals, treat a wide range of patients that must be kept safe.

 
What makes a luminaire an anti-ligature fixture?

A "ligature" is any material that can be used for tying or binding, creating a risk for suicide or self harm. Anti-ligature fixtures and furniture cannot be used as ligatures or as attachment points for ligatures; nor can they be attached with other items to create ligature opportunities (e.g., wedging with a shoe). We refer to our fixtures as “ligature resistant” rather than “anti-ligature” because no product can prevent 100% of possible harm; rather, we recognize how multiple variables and conditions combined contribute to environmental safety.


What is vandal resistance?

Materials that are "vandal resistant" are made to withstand any attempt to abuse or damage them. Vandal resistant luminaires are often used in high traffic public spaces. In behavioral health facilities, light fixtures with tamper resistant fasteners and frames discourage property destruction and prevent materials from becoming dangerous after being damaged. A light fixture that is deemed "vandal resistant" is not necessarily appropriate for behavioral health applications, but may share characteristics in construction with luminaires designed specifically for behavioral health facilities.


What does it mean that a light fixture is high abuse?

Areas that may be at risk for vandalism need high abuse lighting. High abuse lighting is designed to withstand impact without taking damage or losing functionality. You may see high abuse light fixtures in behavioral health facilities, schools, correctional environments, public transportation, and industrial spaces. Many elements of behavioral health fixtures are classified as high abuse because they also apply to fixtures in those spaces.


What does noninstitutional design mean?

Design principles are changing in many markets, and behavioral health is no exception. Human-centric design in the behavioral health environment means paying close attention to the sensory impact of materials. For us, that means engineering high abuse light fixtures that don't look harsh or institutional. This can be a challenge. Impact and tamper resistance limit materials, and ligature resistance limits form, but we see it as an opportunity to solve design problems creatively.