Is there any evidence that Ultrasound works?

[adarsh_physio]

Is there any real evidence that ultrasound therapy works for what it claims to do?
i have tried it in many of my patients and still can't find an answer.
?

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[harry143143143]

r u kidding .physio..
while i treating the patient with ankle spur witha ultrasound.......
i saw progress in xrays.



thats a simple proof.....



iam still 3rd year student


sorry if my words hurted you.

[adarsh_physio]

r u kidding .physio..
while i treating the patient with ankle spur witha ultrasound.......
i saw progress in xrays.



thats a simple proof.....



iam still 3rd year student


sorry if my words hurted you.

not at all i want all ur feed back

[gcoe]

Therapeutic ultrasound has been extensively studied. I am not that up-to-date with the evidence. However my understanding is that it has been found to be no better than placebo or sham therapy most of the time. Far from being a fantastic healing treatment much of the time it is useless. There has been much debate about what makes an optimal dose but even when various doses are looked at the results are disappointing.

I believe two exceptions to the rather miserable performance of ultrasound is for wound healing and bone healing – but don’t quote me on that. Have a look yourself at PEDro and Cochrane.

harry143143143 – you are fooling yourself if you think an experience with a single patient provides good evidence for the treatment. You provide an anecdote which is the worst form of scientific evidence available. Anecdotes make particularly bad evidence because:

 Over and over again clinicians fool themselves into believing their treatments are more effective then they really are - we are all prone to this.

 Regression to the mean – The patient initially comes to see you while in pain and distress. Patients are most likely to seek help when things are at their worst. Most conditions have good days and bad days so a lot of the time they will experience feeling somewhat better just because the conditions has good days and bad days - so even if they aren't really changing they will feel better much of the time.

 Spurs tend to get better anyway whether or not they are treated. This is the case for a lot of conditions seen by physios. Musculoskeletal conditions are often self limiting. That includes improvements on serial xrays

 Xray findings and changes have a poor track record for correlating with the extent of pain and disability. If a spur seems to signify resolution this may or may not correlate with decreased pain.

 Ultrasound appears to be a good placebo anyway. Whether or not the machine is turned on if the patient believes they are getting an active treatment most will report feeling better.

I think you need to find out what makes for good evidence. Is this something you learn on your course?