Zoned mattress (zonal)

Zonal mattresses, or a mattress with zoned areas, is a comparatively new idea, but one that appears to have great merit, particularly in terms of balanced orthopedic support. A horizontally zoned mattress has to have pocket springs rather than foam. At present a foam mattress cannot be zonal in terms of its top surface.

What is a zoned mattress

The concept is a simple one and its aim is to compensate for one of the big problems (and failings) of standard mattresses.

With a normal mattress all of the springs are the same, i.e. the spacing and performance of each spring is the same as its neighbouring springs. This sounds fine in theory, however in reality there are two problems.

• Firstly, because different parts of the body exert different pressures on the mattress some areas will be subjected to more weight than others, e.g. the shoulders are heavier than the feet.
• Secondly, different areas of a mattress receive varying levels of wear. In a double bed the central area is often hardly slept on and the same is true of the sides.

Ultimately, having the same degree of spring resistance over the entire mattress may not be such a good idea and, over time, it may result in localised areas of wear and deflection.

The zonal solution

With a zonal mattress the design of the mattress, i.e. the type, resistance, gauge and spacing of the springs, are varied to take account of the different areas (zones) of the bed. This enhances the orthopedic mattress support properties.

What this means is that more springs, closer spring spacing, or stronger springs (or even a mix of all three) are used to “beef up” the areas of the mattress that receive the greatest loading and the greatest amount of use.

The result is that high loading and high use zones like the areas of the mattress that support the shoulders and the hips are designed to offer more resistance, whilst lower loaded areas e.g. like the centre and top and base of the bed, offer a lesser resistance. The effect is to have a balanced level of support across the whole mattress by using more springs or stronger springs in areas where they are required.

How zonal mattresses operate

There are a number of manufacturers offering these zonal beds and naturally they all claim that the level of orthopedic support is superior to that of a standard mattress. How many different zones a mattress can or will have is dependent on the size (single, double, king size etc) of the bed and the mattress geometry model that the manufacturer chooses to use.

This zoning model is based on analysing sleeping patterns to determine -

• How and where people sleep on each size of a bed
• The frequency of their movements
• How much they sleep on their front, back and side
• What the typical pressures exerted by the different parts of the body are

All of these factors are then used to create a zonal map that determines how much resistance (spring strength) is required for each part of the mattress. The mattress is then built according to these requirements.

At present these zonal orthopedic mattress beds are still a new development, even so, they are fast becoming a focus of some major manufacturers and several are already on sale.