Therapeutic Ultrasound Technology

HCS 212

Technology Article Review

Therapeutic Ultrasound

Therapeutic Ultrasound

I chose to research therapeutic ultrasound technology. After working in the Radiology office at my work, I learned a lot about the different types of radiology equipment, what they do, how they work and the different types of studies they conduct. I chose to look deeper into ultrasound because I wanted to know more about what they do and other types of studies it can be used for.

What I already know about ultrasound technology is that there is no radiation exposure transmitted to the patient during the study, ultrasound uses high frequency sound waves and that those sound waves bounce off the tissue in the body to create the images that are seen. Ultrasound studies cannot be used to look at bones since sound waves cannot bounce back off a bone to create an image. Studies that can be done by ultrasound are studies of the heart, blood vessels, the kidneys, liver, abdomen, abdominal aorta, thyroid, scrotums, ovaries and during the time of pregnancy, just to name a few. These studies give physicians the ability to catch, treat, evaluate and assess individual conditions or even to rule out possible conditions like blood clots. Outside of those studies, I wanted to know what else ultrasound could be used for.

After searching and reading the different sources about ultrasound, I finally found one that struck my interest immediately and that was the article, Therapeutic applications of ultrasound. This article caught my attention because I only ever knew of the main studies that are requested by doctors for patients. I never knew that ultrasound technology is being tested and used for many other purposes.

The article discusses studies that have been and are being continuously tested as well as the different types of treatments that can come from therapeutic ultrasound. Therapeutic ultrasound goes outside the realm of your standard studies and takes this piece of technology...