hey everybody it's doctor Jo, and today we're going to talk about ultrasound
therapy. and the folks at shophysio sent me their Sonopulse III by
Ibramed, so let's get started.
So what is ultrasound you might ask? ultrasound is basically sound waves, but
it's not actually like the ultrasound where you can see pictures, this goes
deep into the tissue and you can have one megahertz or three megahertz. and one
megahertz goes a little bit deeper, three megahertz stays a little bit on the
surface. but ultrasound can help with a whole bunch of different things like
pain relief. it helps reduce muscle spasms, even joint contractures. it does a
really good job of also increasing circulation to the area, so I really like
using it for things like tendinitis and bursitis. depending on what clinician you
ask, they might not have a whole lot of happy thoughts about ultrasound and just
saying I don't know if it works or not, but I've really found that it has some
really good results for me as well as my patients. so that's why I want to talk
about it. and the reason I really like the Sonopulse 3 is because it's super
user friendly to use. but this is a professional unit. so this is for
clinicians out there, therapists, chiropractors, other health care
professionals, even with aesthetics you can use it as well. so you wouldn't
really want to get this for home use, but stay tuned and listen to what you can
really use it for and how it can benefit you, so then you can ask your therapist
about it for using it. so as you can see, here there's not a whole lot to the unit.
there's some select buttons, some set buttons, up and down for intensity, your
program, your menu, and your start/stop button. and so what's really great about
that is some units in the clinic, and if you're a clinician you know that it has
like 20 different things on it, and you have to set this and that it takes a
long time to program it, and sometimes you're spending five minutes before
you're even getting started with your patient. so this I really like because
it's super simple. it's pretty easy to use. there's you know the couple options
that you put in and then you get started and get going with it. so I want to kind
of show you how you can use it and I'm going to plug it in and we'll get going.
so as you can see here, I'm gonna turn it on in the back. The on button's in the back'
and it just kind of beeps and comes on; and has the display up front. and so
again with ultrasound, the nice thing about this is it has the 1 megahertz and
the 3 megahertz. and usually the 1 megahertz is what in the therapeutic
setting we'll use because that goes a little bit deeper into the tissue. so
again for me, the biggest things like tendinitis and bursitis where you really
want to get increased circulation to that area this is a great way to do it
with ultrasound because sometimes you can get it moving with stretches and
exercises and that's great, but sometimes it's just not quite getting that
increased circulation or that deep heat to the area to help loosen things up. and
ultrasound is it's a pretty pain-free way to do it as well, but you really want
to make sure you have the right settings. I think sometimes that's why the
research is kind of mixed on ultrasound because people don't set it on the right
parameters and if you don't have the right amount of watts per centimeter
square or things like that, then you're not going to get enough of the increased
circulation in the area and it won't be quite as beneficial. so just make sure
that if you're a new clinician and you don't know all the parameters, read the
manual, make sure and research, do some research studies reading them to make
sure that you have the right parameters. so usually for me I like to use the 1.0
megahertz which goes a little bit deeper. so it's more of a narrow wavelength
going in versus the 3 megahertz is wider so it's a little more on the surface
area. so you can use either one but again if you're going kind of deep down in
those tendons or the bursa I like to use the 1.0. then you have the
watts per centimeter square, and that's really just kind of the intensity of it,
and it's really easy here you can just go up or down. this is where you need to
be a little bit careful because the higher you go it is more intense, so a
lot of times I'll tell my patient I like to usually start at about 0.8 to 1.0 and
if I just say if you feel like a deep achy kind of pain, let me know and I just
need to back off. so depending on what area you're on, you can go a little bit
higher but that's kind of the range maybe point eight to even 1.2, but
usually I don't go much higher than that. and you might have to go up and down as
you go. usually what you'll feel with it it's just kind of a warmth as you get
going. sometimes it's cold in the beginning because
you have to use a gel with it, a conductor gel. and so you can get any
Universal conducting gel to go with that, but you do need that for the ultrasound
and this unit doesn't come with it, but you can use any kind you want. and so
you'll feel the gel first, and if it's not heated up, it's a little cold, but then
it'll get warmed up. and sometimes you'll feel a little prickly tingly as you go,
but it shouldn't be painful. that's the big thing. so you can see the different
settings here so frequency is the one megahertz or the 3 megahertz. and once
the little arrow is on the frequency, you just set it up or down which will be the
1 or the 3. and so again I usually like one the best unless it's other things. and
then if you go down to the timer is anywhere between 1 and 30 minutes. I
usually like to stick between 8 to 10 minutes with my ultrasound treatment, but
again depending on what you're using it for you can use it for different things,
but I like to just kind of use that to warm things up and then do stretches and
exercises as well afterwards. so not just using it by itself, but using it in
conjunction with other things. then you have the pulse frequency again which is
the watts per centimeter square, and you can go up and down with that, and then
you also have the duty cycle. and what the duty cycle is, which sounds kind of
funny, is how much percentage is going in. so you can do continuous where it's
getting that wave the whole time, you can do pulse, which is you can do 20% or you
can do 50%. so somebody's really tender really irritating you might not want to
do the continuous the whole time, you might want to do it much lower which is
just 20 percent of the time it's on, or you can do 50 percent, which is 50
percent of the time that's on. but you're moving the ultrasound head or the
transducer the whole time, so if you're doing a 50 percent or 20 percent, make
sure you're going slow so you can get the whole area. but if you're going
continuous you want to make sure it's moving the whole time because if you
stop, it does kind of then get that achey spot cuz then it's just going in one
spot. so you want to make sure you're moving it the whole time. and so what's
also kind of neat about this particular unit is it does have a sensor on it
where it can sense if the skin is getting overheated or an over
temperature and it will actually automatically
stop and beep at you. so like if you're holding it in one spot and it's getting
too hot, so all it does is it will pop up saying over-temperature. just keep moving
the head and then once it kind of can tell that it's not so hot anymore,
the unit will start back up again. so that's really cool as well. and then also
if the actual ultrasound head isn't plugged in and like maybe if you have it
unplugged or something you start you don't know it's unplugged, it will also let
you know that it's not in and that you just need to plug it in. and so it'll
give you a little equipment without the transducer as well, so that's pretty neat
so then you're not doing the whole treatment and not actually getting
anything since you usually you don't feel a whole lot of stuff. so again I'm
going to kind of show you let's say I had a little lateral epicondylitis or
tennis elbow going on right in here. and so you want to again make sure you're
using a conducting gel because otherwise it won't work, it needs that gel to be
able to get through without burning or irritating the skin. so I usually let's
say more is better with this, so make sure you have a towel or something and
I'm just going to put, I usually like to actually put it on the head instead of
on the skin, but sometimes you can do a little bit of both just to make it
easier to rub on. and then so before I would put it on somebody, I'd go ahead
and set my parameters and so once I get everything how I want to and I get I'm
just going to do maybe like a point eight. then when it's ready to go you've
got the start/stop button here, and so usually I'll go ahead and start moving
it around and then hit the start/stop button. so if I'm right here I'll go
ahead and kind of roll that gel around so it's in the area that I want, and then
I would start the button and going. so it beeps at you a little bit, and then once
it's going, it shows that little waveform going through on the top there. so if I
just leave it it's going to get a little bit uncomfortable, so I you really want
to kind of do circular motions or even kind of I do figure eight motions around
the area. but the big thing that I like to
- which is just another treatment component it's some people just kind of
lightly rub it around like this. I like kind of getting a massage in there - so
I'm really kind of pushing down. so I'm almost getting some adhesions out by
doing some scar tissue mobs as well just with the transducer head. so you can
do some firm pushing as you want to to get that double component, or just kind
of moving it around lightly it's fine to, that both both ways are going to get
those waveforms into the area. but if you just want to kind of do a double
treatment just kind of push it in there as well, and so I can already feel that
it's getting a little bit warmer. and then there's some times every once in a
while, depending on what kind of injury you know, you might feel little pricklies
and stuff, and that's just it going down into the tissue and doing what it's
supposed to do. and at any time you can hit the stop button so that's pretty
nice as well. and you can go back you know to your
programs. if you want to where you have user 1 user 2 and then you might already
have your program in there, or if you if that was too much for your patient, then
you can go down to a pulse which is like the 20 percent or the 50 percent. so
again the ultrasound has a lot of great components to it to help with the
healing process. it's usually not my first line of defense, but if somebody
still has that a lot of irritation and pain and swelling in there, and it's
just not getting out of there, and it's like a tendonitis bursitis. ultrasound is
a great alternative to try and see if you can just really increase that
circulation, break up that inflammation, and move it out of there. That it might
not, you might not be able to get to it just traditional manual work. so it's a
great other option to have. so if you are someone who might need it, make sure you
go ask your physical therapist about it. if you're a clinician looking for it,
again I think this is a great product because it's super simple to use it's
very effective to use. again you can use it you know for pain relief, even those
joint contractures, increasing the circulation, decreasing spasms, and things
like that. so again this is the Sonopulse 3 by Ibramed and so shophysio
has a whole lot of other professional products that you can check out.
anything ranging from physical therapy, to aesthetics, and athletic training. so
make sure you go check it out. again these are for professional use, but if
you see something that you're interested in, you can ask your health care
professional about it. so if you're interested in purchasing the Sonopulse III
or any of their other stuff, make sure you click on the link up there, and don't
forget to subscribe by clicking down there. and remember be safe, have fun, and
I hope you feel better soon.