Ultrasound Start Up
You've purchased an ultrasound, now what? Getting some training and tips will help you get the most out of your ultrasound machine. Also learning some useful techniques and how to use ultrasound imaging software can help you improve as well.
Useful Human Technique
Gaining fine motor control is what you need to perform a good examination for locating structures you are imaging with an ultrasound. Many structures are small such as the gall bladder and adrenals; therefore you need fine motor control to find them and stay on them with your transducer. After finding the targeted organ you are imaging, be thorough in your examination. You can do this by rotating the probe to ultrasound an organ in 3 different views.
- Control and stability in your motor skills.
- Being thorough in your examination.
- Rotating probe to see different angles.
Useful Ultrasound Software
You can also produce a better ultrasound image using the machines software capabilities. To help, most ultrasounds now have automatic image optimization which will help get the highest quality image. Try some of these tips below to improve your ultrasound image.
- First make sure you are using the right presets. Each probe with have a preset for different organs. Make sure you select the correct one.
- The organ you are imaging should take up 75% of the screen. Make sure you check the ultrasound depth tool, this will make a big difference in your image. If you forget this step, you may have to adjust the gain and frequency again.
- The gain controls an image's brightness. Having the gain set to lower, will not wash out the dark areas. If your machine has TGC, you can alter the gain in steps. TGC makes the image darker further down the screen and compensates for the weaker signal the deeper the image. Make sure your image is not to bright, this will not necessarily make your image better quality. It is also helpful to view or perform an ultrasound in a darkened room to see better.
- Some machines allow you to adjust the number and position of focal points, allowing you to increase the focus. To see movement, you only need on focal point. When viewing larger organs though several focal points will increase visibility.
- One of the most important aspects of an ultrasound probe is frequency. Most probes have a range of frequency that can be changed for variation in subject size. Higher frequency results in a higher resolution of an image, while lower frequency results in better depth penetration.
How We Can Help
If you have purchased an ultrasound from us at KeeboMed, we can help answer specific questions and head to you in the right direction. You can also upgrade or change to an ultrasound that may better fit your needs.