What is Diagnostic Ultrasound useful for?
It can help you if you have low back, pelvic, hip or leg pain. Diagnostic ultrasound allows us to actually see your deep spinal muscles working, or not working in many cases! That is to say, it removes us second guessing if the correct spinal muscles are working to protect you, which is what we would have to do, if we just examine you with our hands. In this way any rehabilitation program that we offer can get to the real problems quicker and more effectively.The results of the scan will maximise the benefits of any exercise program, whether it is done prior to home exercises, Clinical Pilates or Whole Body Vibration therapy.
It simply increases the chance of a successful muscle rehabilitation program, by helping us design the best exercises to manage your problem.
Diagnostic ultrasound; also known as Real Time Ultrasound Imaging (RTUI) is safe and painless. The benefit of “real time” is that you can view the image on the ultrasound screen as the physiotherapist explains what they see and the relevance to your problem. The visual feedback can be used to teach, train and correct faulty muscle contractions.
Medical research has shown that people with back problems often have a weakness of the core stabilising and protecting muscles around their abdomen (belly), pelvic floor and back, both in cause and effect.
- Cause: Dysfunction of the core stabilising muscles permits the spinal structures to be exposed to unnecessary stresses and strains, leading to pain and degeneration.
- Effect: back pain has been demonstrated to switch off the core stabilising muscles. Most notably, even after a single, short-lived episode of back pain, even when the back pain resolves, the core stabilising muscles do not spontaneously recover function.
Research shows that 80% of low back pain sufferers have a recurrence of low back pain within a year, but training of the core stability muscles after ultrasound scans has been shown to reduce the likelihood of re-injury to 23%.
Women’s Health
For those women who are pregnant or have had a child, often you experience incontinence or weakness of the pelvic floor muscles due to the trauma you incur during pregnancy. RTUI can help to diagnose the problem and retrain the muscles for normal function. It provides visual feedback which helps women to identify and isolate the correct muscles for contraction and to determine the adequate contraction strength for optimal results.What should I expect?
- RTUI requires a 40 minute appointment, charged at our special consulting rates.
- The session will comprise of assessment of your core muscle control using the diagnostic ultrasound.
- Clearer appreciation of your back’s core stabilising muscle’s strengths and weaknesses and recommendations for the necessary treatment services, timeframes and costs.
- Own skills to self-help.
- Having a full bladder will maximize the picture quality of the scan. Please drink 2 glasses of fluid half an hour prior to your appointment.
- We have male and female staff that are skilled in the use of RTUI. Please advise the receptionist if you have a preference.
What happens beyond the assessment?
- After the examination, you’ll need to work with the physiotherapist on addressing the problems identified.
- The number of follow-up appointments will be related to how chronic and deep-seated your problem is, ongoing lifestyle provocation, and how much time and effort you are able to contribute to the self-help exercises and advice at home.
- Follow-up ultrasound examination is imperative to ensure that the contraction that you have been practicing is the correct contraction.
Please don’t hesitate to phone if you have any questions regarding your assessment
