Ultrasound guided injections

Editor-in-Chief: Robert G. Schwartz, M.D. [1], Piedmont Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, P.A.;

Overview of Ultrasound

Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is approximately 20 kilohertz (20,000 hertz) in healthy, young adults and thus, 20 kHz serves as a useful lower limit in describing ultrasound. Ultrasound is manually produced in many different fields, typically to penetrate a medium and measure the reflection signature or supply focused energy. The reflection signature can reveal details about the inner structure of the medium. The most well known application of this technique is its use in sonography to produce pictures of fetuses in the human womb. There are a vast number of other applications as well.

'Medical sonography ('ultrasonography) is an ultrasound-based diagnostic medical imaging technique used to visualize muscles, tendons, and many internal organs, their size, structure and any pathological lesions with real time tomographic images. It is one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in modern medicine. The technology is relatively inexpensive and portable, especially when compared with modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) and computed tomography (CT). As currently applied in the medical environment, ultrasound poses no known risks to the patient. Utilizing ultrasound for guidance during injections is a relatively recent development compared to its use in medical diagnosis. The adoption of ultrasound guidance in clinical practice is increasing however and can be attributed to improvements in imaging technology.