Bob: Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
Brad: And I am Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
Bob: And together we are the most famous physical therapists - speak up! - on the internet.
Brad: (Yelling) In our opinion of course!
Bob: Okay. (Laughs) I'm speaking - hello? Could you speak up a little bit? Into the microphone?
Brad, today we're going to talk about ultrasound.
We just realized we're looking back on our videos and we've never done one on ultrasound, and this is,
I would say, the most commonly used modality of physical therapy. Would you agree with that Brad?
Brad: Probably - Chiropractors use it quite a bit too.
Bob: And did you realize that this has been used since 1940?
Brad: No, Bob, I did not realize that.
Bob: I'm telling him things all the time that he doesn't know.
So what's cool about this is it's a very common modality used and it's very easy to use. It's very quick,
and I think it's very effective, especially when it's used with medicine.
But we're not going to talk about that in this video. That's going in the next video, which is we're talking about phonophoresis.
So you may want to look at that one too - Nancy, spell it down below so you can see what phonophoresis is.
But this is just regular ultrasound. Now what regular - this is different than -
this is therapeutic ultrasound versus diagnostic ultrasound.
You heard of ultrasound they use to determine the sex of a baby or they're, you know,
they're looking at your abdomen to see if there's a tumor or something like that.
We're looking at Brad's brain and see if there's a brain up there. But in this case, it's actually
There's a little crystal here that vibrates real quickly and creates ultrasound waves and it's going to do two things, Brad.
One, it's going to heat up the area very deep - the surface, it could heat up the
tissues to very deep. It can goes all way down to the bone. Brad: Sure, sure.
Bob: And the other thing it does is it heals. So it heats and it heals.
And heals through - I I didn't remember this actually - through what they call cavitation.
You don't need to know that but it actually works on a cellular level and helps the cells heal.
So that's probably all that you need to know. But way it works is that you put down a coupling gel
Or what do you call this?
You have a different name for it. Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Brad: It's aqueous, aqueous.
Bob: Yeah, so let's say we're going to a ultrasound on Brad. Let's say he's having a little lateral epicondylitis there, and
Brad: Woah! It's cold!
Bob: Ooh, yeah - One we have sometimes we heat it up
Brad: Bob really likes to put a lot of gel on.
Bob: for people we like and it creates a frictionless surface.
Ooh it almost got on you there, Brad. And we have to keep moving it.
Otherwise, the waves can actually
penetrate so deep that they'll heat up the outside of the bone, and
they would get what is called periosteal pain.
So if you see your therapist stops going like this and starts talking to somebody,
make sure that they keep moving it because you'll start to feel an aching.
Normally what you are going to feel is just a gentle warmth, right Brad? Most people, some people say
they don't think it's working because they don't feel much right, but it's working,
it's doing its job. Usually about seven minutes, eight minutes -
Brad: Yeah, typically.
Bob: So that's as simple as that.
It can be used for - and I wrote these down because I didn't want to forget -
Bursitis, tendinitis,
muscle strains and tears -
I'm not done yet (Brad laughs)
Frozen shoulder, sprains and ligament injuries, joint contracture, and tightness.
Anything else you want to add to that, Brad?
Brad: I usually, just if someone's uh, if they're inflamed and tender I won't use it
but if they're tight and have some of those
symptoms, it's really up to the therapist.
So you really don't need to be concerned about it.
Bob: I use it - if it's inflamed and tender, then I use the phonophoresis. The regular ultrasound, no.
To be honest, I hardly ever use the regular ultrasound anymore because I use the phonophoresis so much.
But that's, uh,
that's therapeutic ultrasound, and your physical therapist or chiropractor may be using it,
and it's been used for a long time. So it's been effective.
Good luck