"Light Modulation Therapy" for Bipolar Disorder

Adjunctive bright light therapy for treating bipolar depression: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…Wirz‐Justice and colleagues reported an interesting case on a refractory bipolar I rapid‐cycling patient, who failed to be treated with only a mood stabilizer, and yet improved by the addition of a combination of dark therapy and daytime light therapy (Wirz‐Justice et al., 1999). A more convenient approach, as we previously propounded, is the “light modulation therapy” which is a combination of BLT for depressive mood and sunglasses therapy (i.e., deprivation of environment light) for hypomanic/manic mood of bipolar patients as the adjunctive treatment (Hirakawa et al., 2019; Terao & Hirakawa, 2015). Specifically, when bipolar patients feel depressed or sad, we recommend them to increase ambient light exposure by opening the curtains in the morning or walking outside.…”