Gel Cushioning Technologies

Technologies

What is OrthoGel™? | Why it works better | Invention | How it works | How it feels


The latest advance in patented gel sleep technology. Lighter in color and weight than old-technology gel, with all the same great characteristics and more. And in our exciting new products we can bring it to you at lower cost!

What is ?

Patented Ortho-Gel™ is the world’s most and affordable cushioning technology - the latest "foamed" variation of polymer gels pioneered by Ortho-Gel™'s inventors. Lighter in both color and weight, Ortho-Gel™ has the same comforting, weight-supporting give and feel as its predecessor old-technology gel applications. When we combine it with our other advanced technologies the result is just heavenly!

Invented in the USA in 1995, Ortho-Gel™ and its predecessors have been used for years in therapeutic care of advanced critical care hospital patients. It is used in the best mattresses and pillows of Europe and Japan, in Dr. Scholl’s Massaging Gel Insoles, and a host of other high-tech cushioning products like our amazing recliner make-overs, pillows and cushions. Nothing cushions like Ortho-Gel™ because the further you push into other cushions, the harder they push back. Ortho-Gel™ ‘knows’ where to stand firm and where to give way. It's a technological marvel that has to be tried to be believed!

Ortho-Gel™ is everything you’ve been searching for as you’ve tried bed after bed, and everything the rest of the sleep product industry has been trying to figure out for years. Why? Because it achieves what every other bed technology misses: all three of the crucial elements of a healthy night's sleep: pressure relief, spinal alignment, and back support. Ortho-Gel™ and its gel predecessors are the only products that give you all three. This high tech solution lets your hips and shoulders sink into the gel with almost no pressure pushing back, and at the same time it reaches up and reinforces the recessed areas of your body. You're cradled, supported, and aligned.

Why Ortho-Gel™ works better
than springs, foam, latex, or air:

All other cushioning technologies follow the same basic laws of pressure. The more the protruding parts of your body (hips, shoulders) push against the sleep surface, the more other sleep surfaces push back. So your hips and shoulders (which curve out) get painful pressure, but your back (which curves in) doesn’t get enough support. So it sags down until it meets the mattress surface. Ouch! Whether you’re sleeping on air, water, springs, foam, or even NASA's memory foam by itself, these pressure points mean blood flow is cut off, causing you to toss and turn in your sleep trying to stay comfortable. That means you can't sleep as deeply or wake as rested as you will on Ortho-Gel™.

The 'holy grail' for generations of mattress experts has been to find a reliable bed technology that could reverse this unpleasant pressure scenario, providing cradling support for the spine while greatly reducing pressure on the hips and shoulders. Medical researchers call this “pressure equalization”.

When Ortho-Gel™ and its predecessor old-technology gels first provided real pressure equalization the medical community embraced it as the technological miracle that it is: a much-needed therapeutic option for burn victims, coma patients, and geriatric patients - anyone bed-ridden for long periods of time, making them prone to problems such as sores and blood clots.

The invention of Ortho-Gel™:

In 1995, a team of U.S. inventors created and patented the first gel polymer and immediately applied it to the most urgent need: cushioning for medical patients. Since then they have worked non-stop to bring the same pressure relief, spinal alignment, and back support to the rest of us. And they've done it. Not only is it the most comfortable, but it's also one of the longest lasting sleep surfaces (see our warranty), it is completely non-toxic, natural, breathable, and temperature-neutral. Unlike some other sleep technologies Ortho-Gel™ won’t heat you up while you sleep, won’t change firmness when the temperature changes, and there is virtually no motion transfer.

How it works:

Ortho-Gel™ is made from hundreds of hollow columns of DuraGel™, a patented ultra-soft, ultra-strong, solid rubber-like material. These columns come together to form one of nature's strongest, most effective patterns: the honeycomb. Each column wall is shared by adjoining columns which work together to give you the right support and pressure relief.

Ortho-Gel™ takes advantage of a phenomenon called column buckling, which means that each column of Ortho-Gel™ is cleverly engineered to support a certain amount of weight. Then when the load gets too heavy the column simply gets out of the way; it buckles and does not spring back until the weight goes away.

In the parts of your body that curve in (your back and side) there is not enough weight on any one column to cause buckling, so it firmly cradles your back. But in areas that curve out (your hips and shoulders), the columns give way easily - literally at a finger touch (see the little finger in the photo above?). When one column buckles it redistributes the load to the surrounding columns and so on to the next wider ring of columns. Your pressure 'hot spots' get a reduction in pressure while giving your low pressure areas the additional support they need. Each column is engineered to the human comfort threshold, adjusting itself to your individual needs no matter your weight or body shape.

How it feels: