Original ContributionInduced Transducer Orientation During Ultrasound Imaging: Effects on Abdominal Muscle Thickness and Bladder Position
Section snippets
Introduction and Literature
There has been a significant increase in the clinical use of ultrasound imaging (USI) by physiotherapists to objectively measure architectural changes of muscle (e.g., thickness and cross-sectional area) and bladder position in both static and dynamic conditions. These applications fall within the scope of rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) (Teyhen, 2006, Whittaker et al., 2007a). In the lumbopelvic region USI has been used to measure the thickness and/or cross-sectional area of the
Participants
Eight healthy volunteers (7 female and 1 male) aged 19–52 y were studied. Participants averaged 30.5 ± 10.7 y, 64.5 ± 10.3 kg and had a mean body mass index of 23.7 ± 3.1 kg/m2. Exclusion criteria included musculoskeletal or neuromuscular disorder affecting the lumbopelvic region, a history of lumbopelvic pain in the last year that required medical attention or resulted in the inability to work or perform recreational activities, a BMI >31 kg/m2, an inability to follow instructions or a skin disorder.
Results
In total, 111 transducer orientations and associated USI images of the TrA, and 143 transducer orientations and associated USI images of bladder base, from eight subjects, were used in the analysis. Vicon camera data was unavailable for 18 (7%) induced transducer orientations and the USI images associated with these missing motion analysis data were excluded from analysis.
A summary of the descriptive statistics (mean ± standard deviation, range) for transducer motion relative to the pelvis for
Discussion
This appears to be the first study that has attempted to establish guidance for acceptable (threshold) amounts of transducer motion for generating reliable measurements of TrA thickness and bladder base position (see Table 5 for a summary) during a clinical simulation. Although the absolute values of the USI parameters (i.e., TrA thickness) investigated are consistent with values published previously (Rankin et al. 2006), it may be useful to determine if the threshold amounts of acceptable
Summary
The purpose of this study was to shed light on the amount of USI transducer motion that is required before there is a significant error introduced into the measurement of TrA thickness and bladder base position, and in doing so, inform both clinicians and researchers using USI and designing future studies. We have done this by first determining if induced transducer orientation produced a significant difference in specific USI parameters compared with a reference position and then secondly by
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ion Medical Solutions, USA, and Vicon, Oxford, UK, for funding Ph.D. studentships for J.L.W. and M.B.W., respectively. Further, they express their thanks to the participants who volunteered to take part in the study, as well as physiotherapists Peter Worsley and San-Pei Chen for their assistance during data collection.
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