• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.503-517
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• 2016

Objective: 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. Application: The results of this study are expected to be utilized as the basis data by which the optimum pillow type and pillow design according to main percentile can be standardized.