Alexandra Smith wants to increase the quality of life for dementia patients at Our Lady of Mercy Life Center.

“The windows, you can see it's high noon right now and there's no light coming in," says Certified Dementia Practitioner Alexandra Smith.

So Alexandra brought the sunlight inside via an artificial intelligence sky in the memory care unit. While getting her masters degree in public health at the University at Albany, Smith oversaw the installation and conducted research about the artificial sky’s impact on residents for her internship.

The data, the center said, shows a positive impact. Compared to the other unit on the ground level without this technology, there have been fewer falls where the sky is installed and better sleep cycles for residents.

“Dementia and the increase of dementia that's happening in our baby boomer population. We really need to keep finding innovative ways to impact them in their quality of life because medicine is not going to change their quality of life.  Non-pharmacological interventions are, and that's what the sky is," Smith said.