By Dr Claire Stapleton (Lecturer in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy , Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine, Keele University)
Visualising blood flow
Working towards a clinical tool using ultrasound
Medical ultrasound is a diagnostic imaging technique
based on the application of sound waves. Sounds waves
are transmitted via a device that is in contact with the
skin and overlies internal body structures, such as muscles, joints or blood vessels.
In physiotherapy, to assess if a patient’s symptoms are
due to a nerve pathology, we often use clinical tests that
include movements designed to increase tension on the
nerve. However, if an artery runs next to the nerve, it
might also be compressed by the movement. As a result
our test cannot differentiate between symptoms of neural
or vascular origin.
“
Using ultrasound, we can monitor the diameter of the
artery and blood flow, identify movements that cause the
artery to be compressed, and omit them from the test.
This will ensure that the test truly identifies symptoms of
neural origin
I have been working with
students on the Biomedical
Engineering Master’s
course at ISTM to develop
software that automatically
detects arterial diameter
from ultrasound images
My goal is to embed this modified test into clinical practice. One of the obstacles is that currently, extracting
arterial diameter and blood flow information from ultrasound is done manually. To address this, I have been
working with students on the Biomedical Engineering
Master’s course at ISTM to develop software that automatically detects arterial diameter from ultrasound images. Such analysis software will allow us to expand our
current measurement techniques to include the assessment of arterial function.
This image shows a blood vessel taken with ultrasound. The
red indicates blood flow and the trace indicates flow rate
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