Cushion and method of evaluating the cushion

Abstract

There is provided a floor-cushion whose structure is such that it (a) enables a person sitting on it to maintain his / her backbone in an appropriate posture, while (b) causing little fatigue in the sitter's muscles, even during long-time sitting. The inside of said floor-cushion (1) is divided into a buttocks-supporting portion (1A) and a legs-crossed portion (1B). The buttocks-supporting portion is filled with cork chips (2), while in the legs-crossed portion a hard-foam resin layer (3) is enwrapped by two soft-foam resin layers (4), so that the legs-crossed portion has a three-layer structure. The buttocks-supporting portion is made thicker than the legs-crossed portion, so that the buttocks-supporting portion inclines downward toward the legs-crossed portion, so as to promote forward inclination of the pelvis.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The current invention relates to a floor-cushion that enables a person who sits thereon to correct the sitter's posture. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART [0002] Even today, when Western-style architecture is prevalent in Japan, the daily lives of Japanese people generally include time sitting on tatami-mat floors. As a result, their posture becomes poor even when they sit on cushions placed on the (tatami-mat) floor. Accordingly, a number of conventional types of floor-cushions that serve to help keep a sitter's spine properly aligned, to correct the sitter's posture, and to help the sitter to maintain a straight posture have been proposed from the viewpoint of ergonomics. [0003] Most of such conventional floor-cushions have a structure such that a part that supports the buttocks—on which a large load is applied—is (1) raised, and (2) made of a relatively hard material (such as hard urethane foam or hard sponge, which is harder than, and about twice as th...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006] To achieve the above goals, the invention relates to a floor-cushion, covered with a floor-cushion bag. The floor-cushion is divided into a rear portion that supports the buttocks and a front portion on which the sitter's legs are crossed or placed. The floor-cushion bag is correspondingly divided into rear and front portions. The buttocks-supporting portion is filled with cork chips. The inside of the legs-crossed portion consists of two soft-foam resin layers that enwrap a hard-foam resin layer, thus creating a three-layered structure for the legs-crossed portion. The buttocks-supporting portion is thicker than the legs-crossed portion, and it slants downward toward the legs-crossed portion, so that anteversion of the pelvis is promoted.

Problems solved by technology

As a result, their posture becomes poor even when they sit on cushions placed on the (tatami-mat) floor.

However, cushions made by the above-mentioned conventional technique have the following disadvantages / problems: (1) if a person sits on such a floor-cushion for a long time, muscular fatigue results due to resiliency of the cushion's hard part, which supports the buttocks; and (2) the effective area of the cushion's hard part that is to sustain the load from the buttocks becomes small, particularly if the form of the hard part does not fit the buttocks, and, as a result, such a floor-cushion does not support the buttocks properly over an extended period of time.

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