Bad back bed
You will sometimes come across beds described as a bad back bed and some retailers will even advertise a mattress as being a mattress for bad backs.
In reality this expression is meaningless as there is no such thing as a bed or mattress designed for a bad back. What there is of course is a mattress designed to try and keep the back healthy by offering a cradling and supportive surface. This should of course describe every mattress.
What should you look for in a bad back mattress
A good mattress, namely one that should help a bad or troublesome back, will be one that is manufactured using quality materials and assembled to a good design. This covers many different and diverse mattress types and this is a GOOD THING because it means that there is a lot choice. The greater the choice, the greater the likelihood that you can find a bed or mattress that feels right to you. Obvious examples of the choices on offer include -
- The memory foam (visco elastic) mattress
- The pocket spring and coil spring mattress
- The adjustable mattress
Orthopedic mattresses
Whilst terms like “bad back mattress” are pretty much meaningless, other expressions like orthopedic mattress or wellbeing mattres are descriptions that are now widely recognised in the bed industry. These terms are usually indicative of the quality of a mattress and the design that went into it.
This means that if you look at the orthopedic or wellbeing product range of a manufacturer who make a number of varying bed types, these products are the flagship beds and mattresses of their range.
The first thing that you can normally spot with these beds is that they are not priced for the economy or budget market. Instead they are normally beds that are targeted at the discerning buyer who is conscious of their health and aware of the importance of good back support. These beds often combine springs and either memory foam or latex foam, or they have different density layers of memory foam combining to produce a multi layered mattress.
Wellbeing beds
The reason that some manufacturers now use terms like wellbeing rather than orthopedic is because the expression orthopedic sounds medical, clinical and very much like something that is associated with a hospital. From a marketing and advertising standpoint this is less appealing than an alternative that spells out health by using the word combination “wellbeing”. Despite this, the two terms are intended to mean the same thing.