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What is Ultrasound?
Therapeutic Ultrasound
Therapeutic ultrasound is a physical agent modality utilized in sports medicine for the purpose of elevating tissue temperature, stimulating the repair of musculoskeletal soft tissue, modulating pain, and in the case of phonophoresis, driving medicinal molecules into a local tissue. Ultrasound is a high frequency, inaudible acoustic sound wave that may produce either thermal or nonthermal physiologic effects within the body. When applied to biologic tissues Ultrasound may induce significant response in cells, tissues, and organs.
Diagnostic Ultrasound
Diagnostic ultrasound is being used more and more in the United States for the diagnosis of musculoskeletal injuries and more recently, for rehabilitation purposes in PT clinics. This has taken place due to the work of Australian researchers in using Rehabilatative Therapeutic Ultrasound as a biofeedback tool for teaching contractions of the transverse abdominus and multifidus muscles. It has also been used as a research tool for measuring multifidi muscle thickness and making side to side comparisons. The idea is that on the injured side, the multifidi will be atrophied and/or inhibited.
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