Musculoskeletal ultrasound
Ultrasound is the present and future of physiotherapy. It is an innovative tool that complements and enriches the functional diagnosis carried out by the physiotherapist in response to the pain for which the patient comes to the consultation.
Can you imagine being able to see what is happening inside your body in real time? Now it is possible thanks to this advanced technology.
What is musculoskeletal ultrasound?
Musculoskeletal ultrasound is a diagnostic imaging technique that uses ultrasound to visualize in real time the internal structures of the body such as muscles, tendons, joints, nerves or fatty tissue.
This non-invasive and painless technology allows lesions to be detected and evaluated with great precision and without the need for radiation or contrast.
What is ultrasound used for in physiotherapy?
In physiotherapy, the use of ultrasound is very useful because it will help us to reach a differential diagnosis of the patient's pain. With this device we will be able to determine the affected structure, the degree of injury, its location and the area involved.
All of this will allow us to get closer to an injury prognosis, choose the most appropriate physiotherapy treatment and monitor the patient's progress during physiotherapy sessions until complete recovery.
Another advantage of using ultrasound in our clinic is when it comes to invasive approaches with needles. The possibility of seeing the tissue we are passing through and where we are introducing the needle is key to guaranteeing safety, being precise, effective and not causing more pain to our patient.
Why is ultrasound so important in physiotherapy?
Ultrasound in physiotherapy, in addition to helping us with the initial diagnosis, offering safety and precision in invasive treatments or monitoring the patient's progress, is a key tool to rule out or refer to other specialists when certain conditions are identified that exceed the physiotherapist's skills.
Some of these injuries may be urgent, such as vascular disorders (deep vein thrombosis). Others may be less urgent but serious, such as complete muscle or tendon tears, fractures, severe inflammation, cysts or tumor masses, infections, etc., which require medical supervision.
What structures can we see with ultrasound?
Through ultrasound we can visualize the following tissues:
- Bone (cortical bone).
- Articular cartilage.
- Joint capsule.
- Joint.
- Bursas.
- Tendons.
- Nervous system.
- Blood vessels (arteries, veins).
- Muscles.
- Subcutaneous fat.
- Fur
What benefits does ultrasound have over other imaging tests?
Ultrasound is a diagnostic test that is becoming increasingly important in the diagnosis of musculoskeletal system pathologies.
In many cases, ultrasound will be the imaging test of choice compared to other tests such as magnetic resonance imaging or X-ray, which are more expensive and cause radiation exposure to the patient.
As we have mentioned before, this is a dynamic, rapid, non-invasive and real-time test, which will allow us to place the probe on the place where the patient feels pain and, through different movements of the injured area, observe how the tissue behaves and what may be causing the patient's pain.
Ultrasound, unlike other tests, shows us the internal structure of tissues such as tendons or muscles, where we can observe the fibrillar pattern and thus differentiate whether a tissue is healthy or, on the contrary, affected.
In addition, it gives us the possibility of carrying out an examination of the contralateral or unaffected limb and thus comparing the pathology with normality.
Finally, it should be said that the use of an ultrasound scanner will help us to study the anatomy as it is and with a good knowledge of it, it will allow us to find the anatomical variabilities that exist in each patient individually.
What are the limitations of ultrasound?
Like any other imaging test, ultrasound also has limitations. These include the difficulty in visualizing bone structures; the echo is not able to penetrate the bone, so it is only able to show the cortex and not the interior of the bone.
Another limitation is that, during the first 24-48 hours of an acute injury, it is difficult to observe the damaged tissue due to the initial inflammation and hematoma. That is why we must wait at least until the third day to have a good image and know the real damage.
Furthermore, we say that ultrasound is operator-dependent. This means that the person performing the ultrasound must have extensive knowledge to perform the technique correctly and have good quality equipment (like the one we have at the Evolution clinic) since a bad position of the probe on the structure to be observed or a slight movement of it can show an incorrect image, not visualizing the lesion or seeing a lesion where there is none, which can lead us to draw erroneous conclusions.
Another limitation is found in very large people where the ultrasound image may be diminished due to the amount of fatty tissue and the loss of image depth, since the ultrasound waves are attenuated at greater depth. Depending on the tissue and the patient to be examined, we can be precise in the assessment or be left without all the information that this advanced technique provides us.
Physiotherapy clinic in Alcalá de Henares with musculoskeletal ultrasound
At the Evolution advanced physiotherapy clinic, we have a LOGIC E R8 ultrasound scanner with which we can support our functional physiotherapy diagnosis through this imaging test, which is the ultrasound.
Our health professionals will try to help you improve your symptoms with the most personalized treatment aimed at the pathological process you are experiencing, with ultrasound guidance and monitoring throughout the recovery process.
