(Published in Chinese Medicine Orthopedics, Issue 6, 2001) The medical profession’s understanding of cervical spondylosis and lumbar leg pain often rests on diagnosis and treatment, with less in-depth research on preventive medicine, failing to reflect the principle of prevention before illness. There is a lack of understanding of the impact of the state of sleep, which accounts for 1/3 of life, on spinal disorders. We report the following on the importance of bed surface traits on pathogenesis and therapeutics: Pan Liangchun, Department of Orthopedics, Chengdu Orthopedic Hospital 1. The relationship between changes in the physiological curve of the human spine and spinal disorders The physiological curvature of the human spine is a structure formed during the long-term evolution of mankind, and its existence allows the human body to be well protected when walking upright in motion, the nervous system and internal organs. From a biomechanical point of view, it is a good shock-absorbing system and a multi-joint complex with a certain degree of flexibility, made up of a combination of intervertebral discs and small joint micro-movement structures. However, this structure has not evolved perfectly. First, we compared large reptilian mammals that specifically have the same structure, such as pigs, dogs, and sheep, and found that the physiological curvature of their spines is similar to that of humans, with only the anterior convexity of the lumbar segment being less pronounced. This illustrates the point that our human neck curvature is not an evolutionary consequence of walking upright, but an adaptive structure for the crawling state. This suggests that the current state of the neck flexure is not as perfect as we usually think. Moreover, the cervical ligaments as well as the strength of the cervical muscles and the size and length of the spines in reptilian mammals are much stronger and more solid compared to humans, which of course contradicts the flexibility of the human cervical lumbar region again. However, the requirement for flexibility in humans also leads to a degradation of the stability of the spine, which makes it prone to instability, degenerative changes, strain, and other common pathological changes. Second, changes in the physiological curvature of the neck and thoracolumbar region are the cause and result of spinal disorders. The emergence of lumbar curvature reflects the principle of adaptation in human evolution. It should be noted that the existing physiological curvature in humans is the most reasonable at present because this structure provides the maximum spinal canal space. Generally speaking, the kyphotic curvature of the spine results in a relative increase in the cross-sectional area of the intervertebral foramina located posterior to the spinal canal and a relative decrease in the anterior curve. Therefore, after the onset of degeneration, the straightening of the physiological curvature is invariably at the site of cervical and lumbar curvature, or even anteversion (i.e., posterior curvature). This indicates two things: one is that the nerve root exit space provided by the posterior bend is larger than that of the anterior bend; the other is that the appearance of the posterior bend or the straightening of the anterior arch is an etiology and a result. 2, the understanding of various bed surface traits for a long time, including many orthopedic surgeons, including medical personnel on the concept of orthopedic “flat bed” is vague, more people think that the flat bed is “hard bed”. As a result, due to the doctor’s reason, the orthopedic spine disease patients’ medical advice is unclear, not only failed to make good use of the therapeutic role of bed rest, but also aggravated the non-physiological deformation of the spine, and even more bedsores. Now a description of the bed surface of various common beds, so as to distinguish and apply. 2.1 hard board bed platform or roughly platform made of steel material, is a kind of flat bed. Such as Sichuan people’s cool board bed, the northern people’s bed platform. 2.2 mattress to spring vertical column or sponge as the main content, the outer bandage flexible fabric platform, because the spring stubbornness coefficient, the degree of density and sponge density, thickness is divided into soft, hard, medium three. 2.3 taut bed to palm, spring and other elastic materials made of plane, which is characterized by the direction of the extension of the deformation is laid flat rather than vertical. Such as commercially available wire beds, hammocks, bandage beds, etc.. 2.4 deformation bed This bed surface trait combines the characteristics of 2.2 and 2.3 two kinds of beds, its internal deformation has multi-directional, the distribution of its elastic unit is uniform and multi-faceted connection. Such as air mattresses, water beds and sponge mattresses. 2.5 flat bed The bed whose bottom platform remains undeformed when subjected to positive pressure (within a certain range). Among them, 2. 1 of the hard board bed and the deformation bed with a hard support platform belongs to the flat bed. The flat bed used by orthopedic patients mainly refers to the bed surface with a steel support platform and deformation mattress. 3. The effect of bed surface traits on spine biomechanics (more)