Pillow use: The behaviour of cervical pain, sleep quality and pillow comfort in side sleepers

Gordon, Susan; Grimmer, Karen; Trott, Patricia

doi:10.1016/j.math.2009.02.006

Cited by 44 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Reports of waking symptoms and sleep disruption were consistently low for polyester and latex pillows, and consistently high for feather pillows. This mirrors the finding of Study 2 regarding waking cervical pain reported on the five new trial pillows (25). Pillow age and type variably influenced pillow comfort and sleep quality, which seemed to be independent of waking symptoms.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

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How Well Does Your Own Pillow Perform?

Gordon

Grimmer

2011

Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain

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These two papers report on findings from congruent yet separate studies regarding the performance of people's own pillow. Data for these papers was extracted from three previously published studies undertaken in the same South African adult-aged [18+ years] community by the same researchers:1. Study 1: a telephone survey administering a standard questionnaire, and 2. 18 months later, two concurrent experimental studies using five test pillows compared with subjects' "own" pillow: Study 2: a pillow field trial of waking symptoms, pillow comfort and sleep quality, and  Study 3: a photographic study of changes in cervical posture in side lying. All studies received ethics approvals from the University of South Australian HumanResearch Ethics Committee.Study 1 was a telephone survey of 812 randomly-selected participants from the local telephone directory. This study described and correlated "own" pillow type, use, age and performance, subjects' sleeping habits, waking symptoms, sleep quality, and pillow comfort.Subjects were asked to reflect on a "usual, recent" week when they provided this information."Own" pillow use was associated with self-reported waking symptoms [headache, neck pain, stiff neck, and scapula-arm pain] for approximately 46 percent subjects. Five pillow types were commonly used [polyester, foam regular, foam contour, feather, and latex]. In the year preceding the survey, 26.2 percent subjects had purchased a new pillow. The mean age of pillows in this study was 58.9 months [standard deviation [SD] 74.4 months]. New pillows were purchased for many reasons including poor support and comfort, neck discomfort, and compromised hygiene. This study did not validate subjects' self-report of "own" pillow type, shape, or age, nor measure waking symptom intensity. [comprising 61 subjects from the telephone survey and 45 recruits from advertisements] using a randomized controlled block-design. Differences were assessed in the effect of subjects' "own" pillow, and the test pillows, on retiring and waking symptoms [pain, stiffness, headache, and scapula-arm pain]. Where possible, subject's "own" pillow was inspected for shape, condition and content. Study 3 was a posture study in which 95 subjects [comprising 81 subjects from Study 2 and 14 additional recruits from advertisements] were photographed in a standardized side-lying position on each of the trial pillows, and "own" pillow, at 0 minutes and 10 minutes later. Short-term change in cervical spine posture on each pillow was compared. Cervico-thoracic posture was measured by digitising the x,y coordinates of five anatomical points [spinous processes of C2, C4, C7, and T3, and the external occipital protuberance], and calculating within-and between-point change in position over time.Subject's "own" pillow depth and the depth of the trial pillows were measured, to allow consideration of pillow performance with respect to altered pillow depth, by placing the pillow on a horizontal table surface and putting a horizontally levelled piece of masonite on top o...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Study 2 collected data prospectively for a week on each trial pillow [five experimental pillows and "own" pillow]. The data collection process and a summary of the prospective sleep diary are reported elsewhere (25).…”

Section: Study Measurement Periodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Well Does Your Own Pillow Perform?

Gordon

Grimmer

2011

Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain

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“…A study of Gordon et al (2009), "Pillow Use", evaluated the comprehensive quality of sleep regarding six pillow types through the measurement of sleep duration and time to get asleep. The six pillow types were customized, polyester, foam regular, foam contour, feather, and rubber pillows.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies (Lavin et al, 1997;Erfanian et al, 2004;Chen and Cai, 2012) analyzed anthropometry, designed a new contoured pillow and analyzed design factors' effectiveness according to sleep duration through a video analysis. Gordon et al (2009) conducted a survey on pain and satisfaction with sleep according to the use of each pillow type, and the study result reported that pillows made with rubber showed higher satisfaction with pain relief, compared to the contoured pillow.…”

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confidence: 99%

Biomechanical Effectiveness and Anthropometric Design Aspects of 3-dimensional Contoured Pillow

Kim¹,

Won²,

Sim³

et al. 2016

Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea

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Objectiv e:The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of 3 dimensional contoured pillow through analyzing contact pressure and to suggest its design guidelines through analyzing the posture of head and neck area.Background: The quality of sleep is a very important factor closely related with human's health. To improve the quality of sleep, the verification of design factors affecting the posture of the head and neck is needed, and a pillow design that can induce proper posture is required.Method: This study measured the contact pressures of the two reference groups (bead and cotton pillows) as a method to evaluate the design effectiveness of the contoured pillow. This study proposed 3-dimensional design guidelines by drawing anthropometry (head length) affecting cervical curvature angle (CCA) through the measurement of the participants' cervical curvature angles. Results:In the design effectiveness evaluation, the contact pressure of cervical region was higher than that of a reference group (cotton pillow), and contract area increased, and contract pressure decreased in the shape distributing the occipital region's body pressure. This study proposed pillow's cervical supporting height by percentile of a head length [head length (%tile) (cervical supporting height) affecting the posture of the head and neck: 14.6cm (5%tile) (6.2cm), 15.5cm (25%tile) (6.7cm), 16.4cm (50%tile) (7.1cm), and 19.3cm (75%tile) (8.9cm)]. Conclusion:This study confirmed the contoured pillow's design effectiveness maintaining cervical angle comfortable to sleep with the shape supporting the cervical vertebrae and by reducing the contact load of the occipital region. Also, this study proposed pillow design guidelines based on the 3-dimensional contoured pillow design effectiveness, through which the study laid the foundation for pillow design in a systematic method.

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“…Due to the anatomical orientation of back and neck muscles, surface EMG can effectively be utilized to record the muscle activities [7] , when compared to more complicated methods such as needle EMG [7][8][9][10][11][12] . Previous studies have shown that adults prefer side resting 59% to 73% of their resting time [13,14] . The stiffness of the mattress and its effect on improving the posture of spine were studied by Haex et al [15] where they used the mattress equipped with air chambers in the region of shoulders, lower back, and pelvis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

A Comparative Study in Cervical Muscle Activities during Various Resting Postures Using Electromyography

Poor¹,

Bahraseman²,

Pouranbarani³

et al. 2017

Am. J. Biomed. Sci.

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Background: Neck and back pain are the most common reported musculoskeletal disorders. Applying surface electromyography to determine muscular activity has been used for a long time for clinical diagnosis. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of two sleeping postures (recommended and preferred postures) on neck muscles activities and fatigue by measuring cervical muscles activities using electromyography. In the recommended posture (Model 1), the cervical and lumbar spine are horizontally aligned, while in the preferred posture (Model 2), the cervical spine is not aligned with lumbar spine. Methods: A total of nine healthy male subjects were asked to side rest with a pillow with adjustable height. The electromyography examinations were performed for upper trapezius (UT) and sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscles of participants. After acquiring the anthropometric data, participants laid on mattress with medium hardness at the two postures for 30 minutes. Results: Comparison between the two models showed a significant difference ( ) in the level of electrical activity of neck muscles. In addition, a remarkable difference ( ) was observed in terms of neck muscle fatigue between the two tested models. Conclusions: The results indicate that the recommended posture developed and tested in this study would reduce the level of fatigue and activity of neck muscles during resting.

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Pillow use: The behaviour of cervical pain, sleep quality and pillow comfort in side sleepers

Cited by 44 publications

References 6 publications

How Well Does Your Own Pillow Perform?

How Well Does Your Own Pillow Perform?

Biomechanical Effectiveness and Anthropometric Design Aspects of 3-dimensional Contoured Pillow

A Comparative Study in Cervical Muscle Activities during Various Resting Postures Using Electromyography

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