• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2017

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) for measurement of muscle thickness with changes in angles of the gluteus maximus (GM) at rest and during contraction. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Twenty-two healthy men volunteered for this study. GM muscle images were obtained in the resting position and during prone hip extension with knee flexion at hip abduction angles of $0^{\circ}$ and $30^{\circ}$, respectively. Two examiners randomly measured the thickness of the GM twice in three different positions. The first position was a comfortable prone position. The second position was prone hip extension with knee flexion (PHEKF) to $90^{\circ}$. The third position was achieved by hanging a 1-kg weight on the ankle of the lifted leg during PHEKF with the angle of the lifted leg the same as the second position. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs), standard error measurements, and minimal detectable changes were used to estimate reliability. Results: The intra-rater reliability ICCs (95% confidence interval) of the GM were >0.870, indicating good reliability. Inter-rater reliability ICCs ranged from 0.668 to 0.913. The reliability of measurements of muscle thickness at each position was similar to the reliability of the angle change. Differences in muscle thickness and ratios for each position with $0^{\circ}$ and $30^{\circ}$ of hip abduction were not statistically significant. Conclusions: In the present study, the intra-rater reliability of muscle thickness measurements of the GM was good, and the inter-rater reliability was moderate to good. Reliable RUSI measurements of wide and large muscles, such as the GM muscle at rest and during contraction, are feasible. Further investigation is required to establish the reproducibility of the protocols presented in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.289-294
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• 2013

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine differences in erect spinae activities at different height of table during ultrasound therapy in order to propose a optimum work environment. METHODS: Twenty five healthy adult males and females volunteered to participate in this study. EMG signals of both erector spinae(T10, T12, L2, L4) were recorded throught the surface electromyography system at different height of table(45cm, 56.2cm, 67.5cm) during ultrasound therapy work. RESULTS: The higher table heights was, the lower %RVC of the T10, T12, L2, L4 erect spinae at both sides. The left and right T10, T12 and the left L4 showed significant differences. The lower the spinal level was, the higher %RVC of both erect spinae at 45cm, 56.2cm, 67.5cm. The left erect spinae at 56.2cm, right erect spinae at 45cm, 67.5cm showed significant differences. CONCLUSION: The muscle activities of both erect spinae decreased at higher table height and increased lower spinal level. We identified lower table height are risk factor of spine work related musculoskeletal disorders.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2006

PURPOSE: Previous studies have documented the lack of ultrasound's non-thermal effects on nerve conduction using frequencies of 1 MHz and 870 kHz. The purpose of this study was to determine the biophysical effects of continuous ultrasound on median local forearm temperature and motor nerve conduction velocities using frequencies of 3.0 MHz. SUBJECTS: Twelve healthy subjects (6 males, 6 females, age $22.30{\pm}2.41$ yrs, weight $61.33{\pm}10.16$ kg, height $167.58{\pm}8.04$ cm) without a history of neurological or musculoskeletal injury to their dominant arm volunteered for this study. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Each subject received a total of five treatments, one each at .0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 W/$cm^2$ of 3 MHz continuous ultrasound on the anterior surface of the middle area of dominant forearm for 10 minutes. Dependent measures for forearm local temperature and median motor nerve conduction velocity (MNCV) were taken pretreatment and immediately post-treatment. One-way ANOVA were used for each dependent measure. RESULTS: The posttreatment forearm local temperature were differed significantly (p<0.001) between intensities of ultrasound. The posttreatment forearm local temperature of the ultrasound treated with 1.0 w/$cm^2$, 1.5 w/$cm^2$ and 2.0 w/$cm^2$ were significantly higher than 0.5 w/$cm^2$ and 0.0 w/$cm^2$ of ultrasound (p<0.05). The posttreatment median MNCV were differed significantly from the respective pretreatment velocities (p<0.001). The MNCV of the ultrasound treated with 0.0 w/$cm^2$ and 0.5 w/$cm^2$ were significantly (p<0.05) slower than that observed pretreatment, while the three ultrasound intensities produced significantly increased posttreatment MNCV: 1.0 w/$cm^2$ and 1.5 w/$cm^2$ and 2.0 W/$cm^2$. The posttreatment MNCV at 2.0 w/$cm^2$ and 1.5 w/$cm^2$ was significantly faster than that at 0 w/$cm^2$, 0.5 w/$cm^2$ and 1.0 w/$cm^2$ (p<0.05), the MNCV at 1.0 w/$cm^2$ was significantly faster than that associated with 0 w/$cm^2$ and 0.5 w/$cm^2$ of ultrasound (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The decreased median motor forearm local temperature and MNCV of the ultrasound treated with 0.0 w/$cm^2$ and 0.5 w/$cm^2$ were attributed to the cooling effect by ultrasound transmission gel. Local forearm temperature and nerve conduction velocity were directly related to the intensity of ultrasound. Alterations in MNCV from ultrasound on healthy nerves appeared to be related to temperature changes induced by thermal effects of ultrasound.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.329-337
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• 2019

Purpose: Ultrasound imaging is commonly used to measure the pennation angle of human skeletal muscles in vivo. However, manual assessment of the pennation angle using ultrasound images is subjective and time-consuming and requires a high level of examiner skill. The architectural analysis of human skeletal muscles is thus challenging. Automated approaches using image processing techniques are therefore required to estimate the pennation angle in ultrasound images. The purpose of this study was thus to assess the intra-tester and inter-tester reliability and validity of the pennation angle using an automatic measurement program. Methods: Twenty-two healthy young adults (mean age = 22.55 years) with no medical history of neurological or musculoskeletal disorders voluntarily participated in this study. Ultrasound imaging was used to measure the pennation angle of the gastrocnemius muscle at rest. One examiner acquired images from all the participants. The intra-tester and inter-tester reliability were evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to estimate reliability. Validity was measured using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: The intra-rater reliability was excellent for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method (ICC>0.95). The inter-rater reliability was also excellent for both methods (ICC>0.93). All the correlation coefficients for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method were 0.79, which indicated a significantly positive correlation (p<0.05). Conclusion: Pennation angle measurement using the automatic pennation angle measuring program showed acceptable reliability and validity. This study therefore demonstrated that the automatic measuring program was able to automatically measure the pennation angle of skeletal muscles using ultrasound images, and thus made it easy to investigate skeletal muscle architecture.

• The Journal of Korean Orthopaedic Ultrasound Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2009

Musculoskeletal sonography is rapidly developing due to the merits such as relatively low cost and possibility of dynamic study. Sonography can be helpful and easily introduced for the diagnosis of the foot and ankle disease. This review tried to clarify the cause and sonographic diagnosis of common foot and ankle diseases.

• Clinical Pain
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.70-73
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• 2021

A minimally invasive procedure refers to a procedure that minimizes tissue damage due to incision. By limiting the size of the incision, it can be expected to reduce the time taken for wound healing, reduce pain, and reduce the risk of infection. Recently, studies have been attempted to dissect the structures of the neuromusculoskeletal system using ultrasound-guided minimally invasive technique. Among those, dissecting thread may be utilized in several musculoskeletal diseases, including carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, trigger finger, and selective crural fasciectomy. In this brief review, the use of dissecting thread in treating neuromusculoskeletal diseases are described.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.11-17
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• 2014

While safe and convenient, ultrasound imaging analysis is often criticized by its subjective decision making nature by field experts in analyzing musculoskeletal system. In this paper, we propose a new automatic method to extract muscle area using ART2 neural network based quantization. A series of image processing algorithms such as histogram smoothing and End-in search stretching are applied in pre-processing phase to remove noises effectively. Muscle areas are extracted by considering various morphological features and corresponding analysis. In experiment, our ART2 based Quantization is verified as more effective than other general quantization methods.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2016

Objective: This study surveyed the perceptions of physical therapists on muscle re-education through visual feedback obtained from rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI). Design: Survey. Methods: For this study, 500 physical therapists who participated in a refresher training held by the Seoul City Association in March 2015 were selected for a questionnaire-based survey. Subjects were randomly selected targets physiotherapists who participated in a refresher training.The questionnaire had 21 items in total. Questions 1 to 15 could be answered by everyone. However, questions 16 to 21 could be answered only by people who used RUSI. Results: The majority of respondents were aged 20 to 30 years. Respondents in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties accounted for 32.4%, 40.2%, 21.9%, and 5.6%respectively. Therapists with careers spanning one to 5 years accounted for 27.8%, while those with careers spanning 5 to 10 years and 10 to 15 years accounted for 34.6% and 17.0%, respectively. Those with careers over 20 years accounted for 9.2%. The types of work have not been various including work related to the nervous system (49.0%), the musculoskeletal system (41.5%), sports (0.7%), juvenile physical therapy (4.2%), and others (4.6%). Conclusions: In this study, we examined the perceptions of physical therapists on rehabilitation ultrasound imaging used in muscle re-education. We also examined how to use this technique. Many therapists who participated in the refresher training were found to be unaware of RUSI. In the future, further investigations on RUSI for muscle re-education are required through refresher training or training lectures at the national level.

• The Journal of Korean Orthopaedic Ultrasound Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2011

Platelet rich plasma (PRP) has been widely used nowadays for several common orthopaedic-related sports medicine conditions with the theoretical basis that PRP supplies numerous autologous growth factors from concentrated platelets needed to promote the healing process of injured tissue. Even though there are many basic sciences, animal studies and some clinical studies regarding PRP injections for musculoskeletal injuries which suggested good results, it is difficult to compare these various studies due to marked methodological differences such as PRP preparation method, the timing, volume and number of injection, and the outcome measurement tool. In addition, many studies have no control groups or a limited sample size, and there are few prospective randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of PRP injections. Therefore, well designed high-quality randomized studies are required to confirm the preliminary results until now and provide scientific evidence to support its use, and the paucity of scientific clinical evidence suggest that the administration of PRP on humans for musculoskeletal injuries should be performed with caution.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.4-10
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• 2018

The aim of this report was to show the effects of acupotomy in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. Four patients were treated with acupotomy twice. Visual analogue scale (VAS), Tinel's sign, Phalen's test, Boston carpal tunnel syndrome questionnaire (BCTQ), muscular strength test, and a cross-sectional area of median nerve was measured using ultrasound before and after treatment. In all 4 cases, the VAS score, BCTQ score and cross-sectional area of median nerve, all decreased and muscular strength test score increased. Tinel's sign and the Phalen's test changed from a positive to a negative in most cases. This report shows that acupotomy is an effective treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome. Further larger are needed to fully evaluate the beneficial effects of this treatment.