A Few Interesting Facts About Memory Foam Mattresses
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: bedding, bedroom, beds, family, health, house, NASA, old age, orthopaedic, other, sickness, technology, treatment, UncategorizedMemory foam has been about since it was developed in 1966, but it has only been by and large available for about twenty years, although twenty years ago hardly anyone could afford it.
One of the early applications for memory foam was for mattresses for the bed-ridden. This is because memory foam mattresses help reduce pressure on the skin touching the bed, which reduces the chances of bed sores and gangrene.
In those early days such mattresses were prohibitively costly so just hospitals and the wealthy could afford them. However, the cost of memory foam mattresses has sharply over recent years and now they can even be purchased on Amazon and.
Initially this extraordinary foam was invented by one of NASA’s spin-off research firms, so it is a product of the space program. At the time, scientists were attempting to find a safer material for use in cushions and pillows for the aeronautical industry.
They came across this foam, but NASA allowed the right to make it, the patent, to slip into the public domain.
A Swedish firm took up the challenge and made orthopaedic mattresses with it because of its capacity to moulding itself to a body’s individual shape due to that body’s heat and weight, thereby supporting the body at more points than a traditional mattress. It is this extra support that reduces pressure on the skin and so reduces the likelihood of bed sores.
Another property of memory foam is its structure. Normal foam is made up of masses of bubbles per cubic inch which are effectively sealed off pockets of air. You body heat warms this air up and so keeps you warm.
This can be a good or a bad thing according to the ambient temperature, but regular foam is always warm.
On the other hand, the cells or bubbles in memory foam are not sealed off entirely so air can flow between them. That means that warm air can escape and be replaced by cool air.
This allows you much more control over the temperature of the mattress by regulating the temperature of the room.
There are two kinds of memory foam high density and low density. One reacts to heat and the other to pressure (or in this situation, body weight). Most memory foam mattresses are made up of a mixture of these two types of foam so that the top layer reacts to the heat of your body and shapes itself around you, while lower layers react to your weight in the same way, depending on how weighty you are.
The lower layers will permit the passage of cool air and this will be transferred to the upper layer, keeping your body cool. One point to make on this issue is that because memory foam mattresses react to heat, if you live in a hot country, the foam will become quite flaccid because of the ambient heat. Therefore, if you live in a hot country, the mattress will need to be that much thicker to permit more air to circulate.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with the Visco Elastic Mattress. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.
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