Device and methods for positioning the head of a reclining person

Abstract

Devices and methods for supporting the head of a sleeping person during sleep so that the top of the head of the sleeping person is tilted upward are disclosed. These devices allow the users to sleep comfortably through the night even if the physical builds of the users differ substantially, and also allow the users to sleep on the side or on the back while keeping the head tilted upward from the horizontal position. The device is especially suited for users with benign paroxysmal position vertigo, and other conditions that can benefit from head-up sleep.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosed device and methods are in the field relating to aiding people affected by motion-induced dizziness including benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and related diseases with head-maneuvering exercises and rest comfortably in a reclining position.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Elevating the head while a person is resting or sleeping through the night has been recognized to provide potential wellness benefits to the resting or sleeping person. For example, in the art, it is known that keeping the head elevated during a dizziness episode for patients diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and related diseases caused by conditions in the inner ear may help alleviate dizziness symptoms, and doctors sometimes recommend that patients sleep on a stack of pillows for a night or two. However, the actual head position that is beneficial to BPPV patients is not being elevated so much as being tilted with the top of the head at a higher position than the lower portion of the head. Moreover some head maneuvering exercises repeatedly position the patient's head at certain angles from either horizontal or vertical positions for a short duration of under a minute at each position.

Pillows in the art are typically designed for a particular sleeping position: on the side, on the stomach or on the back based on the degrees of firmness of the pillow. A “well-designed” pillow is said to “cradle” the head so as to conform to the natural position of the user while lying on the bed rather than elevating and tilting the top of the head upward. Stacking two or more pillows together may produce a head rest that may induce large strain to the neck, spine and hip regions and cause pain that may be extremely uncomfortable to the user. Even if the configuration of two or more stacked pillows can be made comfortable for a particular period of time, it would be difficult to maintain that configuration during the usual six to eight hours of sleep time. There are also “wedge” pillows which allow the sleeper to be sleeping on his or her back only so that the user cannot position the head in more than one orientation. Moreover people of different physical builds such as broad versus narrow shoulders, long versus short necks and so forth are forced to use the same-sized pillow designed for the general public such that they must go through different pillows with different firmness to find the pillow or the combination of pillows that fit their physical builds. It is the object of this application to describe a head rest that elevates and tilts the head position of the user during a regular night sleep duration of six to ten hours, allows the user to sleep on the back or the side, provides comfort for users for different physical builds, allows the user to choose the optimized configuration and locked in the inclination angle of the head-rest, and change the angle to a different one when desired. It is also an objective of the present invention to disclose a method to prevent and minimizing the symptoms of motion-induced dizziness in an affected person.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention discloses a device in the form of a head-rest that enables a user to sleep on his or her side, and on his or her back with comfortable support for the head, neck and shoulder regions, and with his or her head elevated and inclined in a range of inclined angles from about 10 degrees to about 40 degrees with respect to the horizontal. The device comprises of at least two layers which may be separate layers or two distinct portions of a contiguous structure. The layers are made of a single material or a combination of materials usually used in constructing sleep pillows in the art such as gel fibers, polyester fibers, foams including polyurethane “memory” foam or cut-up foam pieces, beads, buckwheat hulls and other natural materials such as cotton, wool, wood, water fowls' feathers and the like used in the art for stuffing pillows. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the top layer which provides the sleep surface is made softer than the second layer which provides the support for the top layer. The second layer and the top layer are stacked in such a way that the top layer overhangs and protrudes over the second layer by up to about two-thirds of the width of the top layer, and the width of the overhang, i.e., the amount of the top layer protruding away from the edge of the support layer, is adjustable. The width of the overhang is adjustable by means of fastening devices such as hook and loop devices under the trade name of Velcro®, non-permanent adhesive-based devices, hook-and-eye devices, buckles and the like known in the art, or by interlocking means such as grooves and mating ridges, poles and holes, and the like installed on the mating surfaces of the top and second layers. As the head of the sleeping subject rests on the device, the top layer pivots on the edge of the second layer and the overhanging part of the top layer tips down creating an inclined sleeping surface. The adjustable inclined angle of the sleep surface with the fastening or interlocking devices due to the user's placing his or her head more on the sleeping surface over the support layer or more on the overhang portion of the top layer ensures that the head of a subject of a particular build can be made to tilt at an inclined angle with respect to the horizontal with adequate support for the neck and shoulders for both the on-the-back or on-the-side sleep positions for a prolonged period of time. When the subject sleeps on the back, the head slides down the inclined sleep surface until the neck is comfortably supported by the leading edge of the overhang section, and yet the top of the head is still resting on the part of the top layer closest to the edge of the support layer to prevent the head from resting horizontally or close to horizontally with respect to the surface of the bed.

If the user of the disclosed head-rest device suffers from motion-induced dizziness such as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), the head-rest device allows the user to have his or her head inclined at an angle at various orientations during the natural tossing and turning over the head-rest device of over the six to ten hours of sleep, which mimics to a degree some of the head maneuvering exercises that are designed to help relocate the loose otoliths (“ear rocks”) out of the semicircular canal or canals of the inner ear, and at the same time, prevents the head from going to the horizontal position which is the most vulnerable position for the otoliths to fall into the semi-circular canal. Since the vertigo symptoms are due to the presence of otoliths in the semi-circular canals, the minimization of the potential of the otoliths falling into the semicircular canals by the use of the disclosed head-rest may potentially help prevent dizziness symptoms of

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIGURES

The present invention will be understood and appreciated more fully from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention, taken in conjunction with the following drawings in which:

FIG. 1: Schematic drawing of one embodiment of the disclosed head-rest device comprising two discrete layers.

FIG. 2: Schematic drawing of the approximate configuration of the disclosed device when the head of the user is resting on the device while the user is lying on his or her back.

FIG. 3: Schematic drawing of the configuration of the disclosed device when the head of the user is resting on the device while the user is lying on his or her side.

FIG. 4: Schematic drawing of another embodiment of the disclosed head-rest device comprising the top and the support layers being two distinct portions of a single structure.

FIG. 5: Schematic drawing of another embodiment of the disclosed head-rest device with a third component which possess regions of rolled up materials to make the regions firmer and higher than the rest of the component.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The device being disclosed in this invention is a support for the head, neck and shoulders of the user so that the top portion of the head of the user is elevated and at an inclined angle with respect to a more or less horizontal flat surface on which the user lies. Referring to FIG. 1 which shows one embodiment of the invention, which is the preferred embodiment of the device, the device 10 comprises at least two discrete layers, a top sleeping layer 100 with a first surface 110 and a second surface 120, and a bottom support layer 200 with a first surface 210 and the second surface 220. The second surface 120 of the layer 100 lies partially on top of the first surface 210 of the bottom layer 200. The portion of the layer 100 that juts out from the edge 230 of the layer 200 forms an overhang 130, the width of which when measured from the edge 230 is from about 3 inches to about 15 inches. The total width of the layer 100 is from 14 inches to 25 inches, with the preferred width to be about 20 inches. The length of the layer 100 is in the range of 12 inches to about 40 inches. The layer 200 has a width that is also from about 14 inches to about 25 inches. The preferred width of the layer 200 is about half of the width of the layer 100. The heights of the layers 100 and 200 depend on the materials of which the layers 100 and 200 are made. The layer 100 is made softer than the support layer 200 either by using a softer material for the top layer 100 and a firmer material for the second support layer 200, or by stuffing a casing with sufficient material to make a firm structure for the layer 200, or a combination of both methods. The layer 100 and the layer 200 are shaped by casings made of a textile fabric and stuffed with a material or a combination of materials that are used in stuffing a pillow known in the art. These materials include gel fibers, polymeric fibers such as polyester fibers, poly fiber clusters, structural foams including polyurethane “memory” foam of various degrees of firmness, cut-up foam pieces, buckwheat hulls, other natural materials such as cotton, wool, wood, water fowls' feathers and the like. Therefore the layer 100 may be of the form of a conventional pillow made by filling a fabric casing with pillow-stuffing material, or of foam sculptured into a one of the pillow forms known in the art. The preferred materials for making the layer 100 are polymeric fibers, water fowls' feathers, cut-up foams and buckwheat hulls and other non-structural organic or inorganic materials for stuffing a casing. The layer 200 may be made of sculptured foams without sharp edges formed by ˜90 degrees angles or unstructured materials listed above stuffed in a casing. If unstructured materials stuffed in a casing is used for constructing the layer 200, then the layer 200 should be stuffed to the firmness of a firm or extra firm pillow known in the art. In one embodiment, the surface 210 of the layer 200 is slanted at an angle of about 5 to 10 degrees with respect to the surface 220, and the surface 210 does not have sharp edges. Because of the inclined angle of the surface 210, the preferred height of the layer 200 is about 5 inches on one end of the width and about 4 inches on the other end. On the second surface 120 of the layer 100 and the first surface 210 of the layer 200 are fastening means 150 such as hook and loop devices exemplified by devices under the trademark of Velcro®, non-permanent adhesive strips, hook and eye, buckles, or interlocking structures such as ridges and grooves that fix the position of the layer 100 over the layer 200 so that the width of the overhang 130 can be varied and then once the desired position is achieved, the fastener or interlocking means 150 ensure that the relative position of the layer 100 and the layer 200 is fixed. When the user of the device 10 places his or her head on the sleeping surface 110 of the layer 100 with the overhang region 130 under his or her neck and shoulder regions while lying on his or her side on a flat surface, the weight of the head tips the device 10 so that the sleeping surface 110 forms an incline angle 500 in the range of about 10 degrees to about 40 degrees with the flat surface of the bed, as exemplified in the illustration in FIG. 2. The magnitude of the inclined angle 500 depends on the width of the overhang 130. To achieve this range of inclined angles 500, the height and firmness of the layers 100 and 200 are adjusted which can be carried out effectively by one skilled in the art. The layer 200 should be firm or extra firm as represented by conventional description of the firmness of pillows in the art. For example, to achieve firm or extra firm pillow packing in the art, the weight of the gel fiber used to stuff a standard 20 inches×26 inches standard-sized pillow is from about 20 ounces to over 30 ounces. The overhang 130 supports the neck and the shoulder while the head is mainly supported by the part of the sleeping surface 110 directly over the layer 200 and behind the overhang 130. The leading edge of the overhang 130 may be rolled toward the leading edge 230 of the support layer 200 by the user to gain more height for the head rest and at the same time increases the incline angle. This configuration of the layers 100 and 200 may also be more comfortable for a user with broader shoulders than average. When the user of the device 10 lies on his or her back, the head of the user slides down the inclined sleeping surface 110 until most of user's the head and the neck region rest on the overhang region 130. Only the top portion of the head is supported by the part of the surface 110 wrapping around the edge 230 of the support layer 200, or the distal end of the overhang over the edge 230. By having the lower part of the head resting on the leading edge of overhang region 130, the neck and shoulder regions are much closer to the flat surface of the bed than when the user is lying on his side. The strain on the neck and shoulder regions, as well as on the back of the user is substantially reduced. The incline angle of the head while the user is sleeping on his back and resting the top of the head on the distal end of the overhang 130 of the device may be as small as about 10 degrees.

In another embodiment of the invention as shown in FIG. 4, the layer 100 and the layer 200 are attached at a connection region 300 such that layer 100 can be folded over to lie one top of layer 200. The relative positions of the layer 100 and the layer 200 are also fixed with fastener or interlocking means as in the previous embodiment. The connection region 300 may be made of a flexible piece of fabric or strap to link the layer 100 and the layer 200 together. As is also known in the art, an additional thin narrow-width cushion strip or foam strip may be used underneath the neck region or the lower back region to give supplemental support while the user is lying on his or her side or his or her back. Likewise additional conventional pillows may be used to provide support on the user's back. In still another embodiment of the device, the additional support is a strip structure that can be rolled up in some parts so that the rolled-up parts provide a firmer and higher support than the rest of the structure. Referring to FIG. 5, the strip structure 400 is about 3 inches high and about 3 to 9 inches wide. The length of the structure 400 may be the same as those of the layer 100 and 200, or longer. The width of the structure 400 may be rolled up in the middle or along the whole length and the rolled-up shape 410 is maintained with the help of non-permanent fastening device 450 such as Velcro™ strips. The structure 400 is made of the same kinds of materials as that of the layers 100 and 200. The preferred material for making the strip structure 400 is polyurethane foam with a low impression load deflection (ILD) of about 12. The rolled-up portion of the structure 400 has an ILD larger than the ILD of the foam making up the structure thus enabling the strip structure 400 to have variable heights as well as variable firmness along the length of the structure. The strip structure 400 is not attached to the layer 100 or layer 200 and can be placed under the overhang region 130 to add support for the neck and shoulder region, or placed a portion of the spine for lumbar support.

It is also an objective of the present application to disclose a method for aiding the head maneuvering exercises aimed at alleviating the dizziness symptoms of persons suffering from benign positional dizziness such as BPPV and related diseases. Since the user's head position is always at an inclined angle in the range of 10 to 30 degrees with respect to the horizontal dining the entire night of sleep whether the user is sleeping on his or her side or on his or her back, the head movements of the user during natural tossing and turning mimic to a degree the head-maneuvering exercises used by BPPV patients outside of the clinic to relieve dizziness symptoms. Some exercise includes positioning the head about 45 degrees with respect to the horizontal or vertical and keeping each position for about 20 seconds while a sufferer of BPPV is reclining on a flat surface for a total of about 10 to 20 minutes for each session and about 3 times each day. The user of the disclosed head-rest device positions his or her head at an inclined angle for six to eight hours each night with the head well-supported during the positioning.

The rationale behind positioning the head on the head support to alleviate dizziness symptoms at an inclined angle in the range of 10-35° is based on information derived from some published scientific results that show that the horizontal position of the head might be the most vulnerable for the otoliths to enter the semicircular canal. The disclosed process in the invention eliminates the potential that a person diagnosed with BPPV and possesses BPPV symptoms may have his or her head in the horizontal position even during sleep.

Patients who suffer from motion-induced vertigo can attest to the high frequency of episodic attacks occurring in the morning when they get up from the horizontal position. Since having the patient sleep in a recliner or hospital bed arrangement with the upper body and therefore head position at an almost upright position every night is unacceptable to most patients for a variety of reasons, using the disclosed head-rest device in the patient's bed every night or frequently delivers the same benefits.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A device for use as a head-rest when a user is reclining on a horizontal surface Comprising: a first three-dimensional pliant component made of one or more materials known in the art for making sleep pillows;a second three-dimensional pliant component with at least one slanted surface made of materials known in the art for making firm or extra firm sleep pillows; anda non-permanent fastening means on at least one surface of the first and one surface of the second components so that the first and the second components can be placed in a user-selected configuration one on top of the other and the relative positions of the first component to the second component is fixed by the non-permanent fastening means.

2. The device in claim 1, where the angle of the slanted surface of the second component is from about 5° to about 10°.

3. The device of claim 1, where the high point of the inclined surface of the second component is about 5 inches from the base surface of the second component and the low point of the inclined surface of the first component is about 4 inches from the base surface of the first component;

4. The device of claim 1, where the width as measured from the high point of the inclined surface to the low point of the inclined surface of the second component is in the range of 6 to 20 inches.

5. The device in claim 1, where the second component is made of a polyurethane foam.

6. The device in claim 1, where the first component is in the shape of a conventional sleep pillow stuffed to 20-30 pounds firmness with one or more of the pillow-stuffing materials of a discrete nature such as polyester fiber, polyester fiber clusters, cut foam, cotton, wool, beads, grain hulls and the like.

7. The device of claim 1, where the non-permanent fastening means is a hook and loop device exemplified by devices under the trade name of Velcro™.

8. The device of claim 1, where the non-permanent fastening means are interlocking structures built into the two interfacing surfaces of the first and second components.

9. A device for use as a head-rest when a user is reclining on a horizontal surface Comprising: a first three-dimensional pliant component made of one or more materials known in the art for making sleep pillows;a second three-dimensional pliant component with at least one slanted surface made of materials known in the art for making firm or extra firm sleep pillows;a non-permanent fastening means on at least one surface of the first and one surface of the second components so that the first and the second components can be placed in a user-selected configuration one on top of the other and the relative positions of the first component to the second component is fixed by the non-permanent fastening means; anda third three-dimensional pliant component of an elongated shape and made of materials known in the art for making sleep pillows.

10. The device in claim 8, where the angle of the slanted surface of the second component is from about 5° to about 10°.

11. The device of claim 8, where the high point of the inclined surface of the second component is about 5 inches from the base surface of the second component and the low point of the inclined surface of the first component is about 4 inches from the base surface of the first component;

12. The device of claim 8, where the width as measured from the high point of the inclined surface to the low point of the inclined surface of the second component is in the range of 6 to 20 inches.

13. The device in claim 8, where the second component is made of a polyurethane foam.

14. The device in claim 8, where the first component is in the shape of a conventional sleep pillow stuffed to 20-30 pounds firmness with one or more of the pillow-stuffing materials of a discrete nature such as polyester fiber, polyester fiber clusters, cut foam, cotton, wool, beads, grain hulls and the like.

15. The device of claim 8, where the non-permanent fastening means is a hook and loop device exemplified by devices under the trade name of Velcro™.

16. The device of claim 8, where the third three-dimensional pliant component has a more or less rectangular profile of about 3 inches in height and about 8 inches in width.

17. The device in claim 8, where the third pliant component has non-permanent fastening means that allow the component to be rolled into a quasi-circular profile.

18. The device of claim 8, where the third pliant component has a more or less circular profile of about 3 to 4 inches in diameter.

19. The device of claim 1, where the first and second pliant components are tethered by some flexible means.

20. A process for alleviating the dizziness symptoms of a person suffering from benign paroxysmal positional vertigo comprising the steps of positioning the head of the person on a head-rest device comprising; a first three-dimensional pliant component made of one or more materials known in the art for making sleep pillows;a second three-dimensional pliant component with at least one slanted surface made of materials known in the art for making firm or extra firm sleep pillows; anda non-permanent fastening means on at least one surface of the first and one surface of the second components so that the first and the second components can be placed in a user-selected configuration one on top of the other and the relative positions of the first component to the second component is fixed by the non-permanent fastening means adjusting the relative position of the first component and the second component until the head is rested in a comfortable position by releasing the non-permanent fastener between the first component and the second component and re-fasten after moving the second component relative to the first component to the desired position; visually checking that the top of the head of the person laying on the head-rest device is tilted upwards with respect to the horizontal surface that the person is reclining upon; rotating the head of the person laying on the device to various angles and at various intervals typical of tossing and turning during sleep; positioning a third optional strip structure under the first component of the device or under the back of the person for lumbar support; and repeat the previous steps approximately every 24 hours.