Have you ever heard of a memory foam mattress? Memory foam has actually been around since 1966 when it was developed by a team of NASA scientists, who were looking for ways to make aircraft cushions safer. Therefore a memory foam mattress is a mattress made from this space age foam, although modern memory foam has been hugely improved since those early days. The problem with the early foam was that it was too brittle, so it crumbled within a few years.
Nowadays, memory foam will conform to a body’s shape by reacting to a blend of body weight and body heat depending on the density of the foam. One of the earliest uses of memory foam was in hospitals where it was found that memory foam could ease pressure on the parts of the body coming into contact with the foam, which reduced the occurrence of bed sores and gangrene in long-term bed-ridden patients.
The first memory foam mattresses were very costly and only institutions such as hospitals could afford them. However, over the last twenty years, the price of memory foam has fallen dramatically and so these super mattresses are now within the grasp of almost everyone who needs or wants them. There are options to the traditional memory foam mattress as well, there are memory foam pads and cushions and pillows as well.
The use of this special foam has flooded into other regions of our lives as the price of it has dropped. Memory foam is now used in car seats, wheelchair seats, kids’ high chairs, earplugs, gloves and office furniture. In fact, this new foam is now used to produce many items that have to be worn or used for long periods of time - golf gloves as well for example.
Although the price of these memory foam mattresses has dropped significantly they may still be too expensive for everyone in large families to have one each. In this case you could go for mattress toppers which are otherwise called mattress pads. These are meant to be laid on top of the mattress but under the bottom sheet. They are cheaper because they are normally between two and four inches thick.
However, be careful with cheap toppers because any foam memory foam topper that is thinner than two inches thick is prone to be ineffective. Likewise, bigger is not always better, because some individuals find memory mattresses that are over six inches thick are too stiff to sleep on.
Check the warranty as well. Some high-density mattress pads of two inches thickness will crumble within a couple of years, so a two year guarantee means that you will get at least this length of time out of your memory foam mattress or mattress pad.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with the college for massage therapy. If you have an interest in massage, please go over to our website now at Classes For Massage Therapy