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This study combines concepts of bed design and sleep registrations to investigate how quality of spine support affects the manifestation of sleep in healthy subjects. Altogether, 17 normal sleepers (nine males, eight females; age 24.3±7.1 years) participated in an anthropometric screening, prior to the actual sleep experiments, during which personalised sleep system settings were determined according to individual body measures. Sleep systems (i.e. mattress and supporting structure) with an adjustable stiffness distribution were used. Subjects spent three nights of 8 h in bed in the sleep laboratory in a counterbalanced order (adaptation, personalised support and sagging support). During these nights, polysomnography was performed. Subjective sleep data were gathered by means of questionnaires. Results show that individual posture preferences are a determinant factor in the extent that subjects experience a negative effect while sleeping on a sagging sleep system. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: This study investigated how spine support affects sleep in healthy subjects, finding that the relationship between bedding and sleep quality is affected by individual anthropometry and sleep posture. In particular, results indicate that a sagging sleep system negatively affects sleep quality for people sleeping in a prone or lateral posture.

The sleep system (i.e. the combination of mattress and bed base) is an important factor of the sleep environment since it allows physical recuperation during sleep by providing proper body support. However, various factors influence the interaction between the human body and the sleep system. Contributing factors include body dimensions, distribution of body weight and stiffness of the sleep system across the mattress surface. During the past decade, the rise of several new bedding technologies has made it increasingly difficult for the consumer to select a proper sleep system. Therefore, this study presents a method to model human-bed interaction in order to objectively predict the ideal sleep system for a particular individual. The proposed method combines a personalized anthropometric model with standardized load-deflection characteristics of mattress and bed base. Results for lateral sleep positions show a root mean square deviation of 11.9 ± 6.1 mm between modeled spine shapes and validation shapes, derived from 3D surface scans of the back surface. The method showed to be a reliable tool to individually identify the sleep system providing superior support from a variety of possible mattress-bed base combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]