Background
My father has prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. Unfortunately, he never had high PSA levels, which is the usual sign of prostate cancer, so it was just caught last year when he slipped on ice and fractured his hip. No treatment has worked thus far, so the oncologists have ceased all treatment, and have projected his lifespan to from a few weeks or a few months. I’m not in denial but we all know that people often outlive those projections as not everyone really knows, so we are trying to make him comfortable but not giving up by a long shot.
As of late, my father has severe arthritic back pain and has difficulty getting up out of bed by himself. The cancer is now believed to spread to his back. He has become bed stricken, getting up only to use the bathroom or to shower, in which, both have become huge endeavors.
In order to try and help him manage, we moved an old full-size Baker Bilt innerspring mattress out of the master bedroom into the garage . We set up an adjustable single bed in its place that a friend gave us with a Sinomax mattress made up of 88% polyurethane foam and 12% gel; however, I can attest from personal experience that I’m always sore whenever I spend the night in that bed. Plus, my father feels he never has enough room as it’s just a single bed. As a result, he has moved over to a five-year old full-sized Sealy Posturepedic Preferred Series Impress Firm innerspring bed that my mother has been sleeping on in the guest room. By the way, I looked at all the mattresses tags in the house so I could reference them in this post. It’s not like I usually know this stuff. 
My mother and I would like to purchase a new adjustable bed frame and a queen’s size mattress for three purposes.
- The Adjustable Bed Frame would make it easier for him to sit up in bed to eat and drink as well as get up.
[li]The Queen’s size mattress would give more room than a single[
[li] A secondary goal is to get a bed that my mother will like as well. She doesn’t plan on sleeping in it at first but may do so or it may be her bed alone if my father passes./li]
At this point, my father is laying in bed all day, and needs someone that he can grab on to so he can pull himself up to get out bed to go to the bathroom. I need to determine what’s the best bed for him to be in, but he is not up for going to different stores to try mattresses out.
Dilworth Mattress Factory
Today, my mother went shopping at the Dilworth Mattress Factory in Charlotte, NC. I tested an Lennox mattress in the store and remarked how it felt like my own personal mattress at my home. The owner looked up my name in his records and confirmed that I had purchased a Lennox innerspring Lennox mattress back in 2000.
We told the owner what we were looking for, and he suggested a Legget and Platt S-Cape adjustable bed with a latex mattress as he believes the innerspring mattresses will not work as well nor last as long on an adjustable bed frame. The recommended mattress was The Performance, which is made up of three different layers of Talalay latex (blend of 60% natural and 40% synthetic). These are the specs that they provided for The Performance model.
[ul]
[li]1.5-inch Soft Layer (ILD 24)[/li]
[li]2-inch Medium Layer (ILD 28)[/li]
[li]6-inch Firm Layer (ILD 36)[/li]
[/ul]Both my mother and I liked The Performance but we preferred The Blue Heaven model which is 6" of firm natural Talalay latex with a base foam. We preferred how firm it was, but the owner said that The Performance was a better choice for someone laying in bed all day since it was softer at the top and better with pressure points. If my father doesn’t feel that it’s firm enough, we can simply change the order of the layers ourselves. In other words, I can open up the mattress and move the 2-inch medium layer to the top and the 1.5 inch soft layer to the middle or I can move the 6-inch firm layer to the top. The idea here is that I had more options available with this tri-layer latex construction.
I also told the owner that I have moved back in with my parents and was sleeping on the couch. Since my father doesn’t like the single adjustable bed, I was considering ordering a Tufs and Needles mattress Twin XL for $375 to replace the Sinomax mattress. He told me that he would buid me a twin xl innerspring mattress if I preferred to put on the adjustable bed but he felt it’s duration would probably be limited to a seven year lifespan on an adjustable bed, so not sure if I should go this route or not.
Both beds would be built and he could get them to us by end of week if we let him know by Monday.
Mattress Firm
Next we visited the chain store Mattress Firm. I told the very kind sales lady that I was looking for an adjustable bed, preferably a latex bed. She told me that they didn’t sell latex beds because that material wore down the fastest. I asked if that were true for Talalay latex and said it was which was why they didn’t carry any latex beds. This information was a disagreement of opinion compared to Dilworth Mattress Factory’s website that states that latex has been known to last 20 years before needing to be replaced. They said that certani innerspring mattresses would work fine with adjustable bed frames. In fact, the prices for a queen sized Simmons innerspring bed with a less featured adjustable frame were about the same as the latex mattress and frame at Dilworth’s.
Mattress Firm recommended that we go with a Tempur Pedic Tempur Cloud Supreme for a person who is laying in bed all day. This mattress is a little higher but in the same price range as the latex bed we were considering. I didn’t expect to like this bed, but I did; however, I think that Tempur Pedic’s Tempur Ergo Premier adjustable bed price is outrageous.
I’ve read that memory foam beds are harder to move in, which is why I didn’t really consider this one, but it didn’t seem harder to move in. The latex bed did have more bounce back than sink in when trying to push off it, but both seemed OK but neither great for moving in.
I know that the major brands are not what this board is about; but I felt that I had to at least try the Tempur Pedic bed considering that it’s supposed to be therapeutic. Plus, Mattress Firms gives you 100 days to return a mattress, which is nice. They also had all beds ready for delivery by tomorrow.
Buying a bed for another person is difficult, therefore, after that long introduction, here’s my inquiry.
QUESTION: Does anyone have any recommendation for a mattress for someone who is bed stricken and has severe arthritic back pain?