Musculoskeletal
Seniors, too, can benefit from ultrasound imaging. It can be used to determine soft-tissue injury such as nerve damage, ganglions (tumors growing on a tendon) or other superficial injuries. Sports medicine has also benefited from ultrasound, such as the examination of sports-related injuries like stressed ligaments in the knee or an injured rotator cuff (shoulder). The ability to look closely at moving tendons in the hand is of significant clinical benefit to orthopedic and hand surgeons. Using ultrasound, doctors can see internal structures of nerves in the wrist to determine if they’re trapped or swollen, potentially causing carpal tunnel syndrome. Musculoskeletal disorders are among the most prevalent medical conditions in the United States, affecting seven percent of the population. Muscle injuries to the ankle, hip, knee or elbow can also be addressed using this portable and safe diagnostic modality.
Ultrasound can also be used to examine organ-related disorders at any age, but especially useful for seniors with gallstones, kidney disease or abnormalities in the colon.
Whether it’s an MRI, CT scan or ultrasound exam, diagnostic procedures are a critical element in detecting disease before it progresses. Kidney cancer is a serious disease, which accounts for more than 11,000 deaths in the U.S. each year and is most commonly seen in people aged 50 to 70. And it’s people over the age of 50 who are more likely to develop colon cancer; the country’s second leading cause of cancer death after lung cancer. Seen only women, endometriosis is a disorder in which cysts form in the reproductive system causing pain and bleeding during the menstrual cycle and sexual intercourse. Ultrasound can play a key role in detection.
Mother and Baby
The most well known application of ultrasound is its use in fetal imaging. Now, more than ever, fingers, toes, ears, genitals, eye lashes-they all shine through with remarkable clarity-offering expectant parents assurance that everything’s okay and helping mom and her doctor do their best to avoid things which might go wrong.
Because ultrasound uses sound waves to create its images, it has been shown to be safe for both mother and child. A physician or technologist moves a transducer-a device that produces high frequency sound waves and is used in all ultrasound exams-across the mother’s abdomen; the transducer then receives the echoes coming back from the baby as a visual picture that is displayed on the system monitor which can be saved and later printed.