ABSTRACT
Ultrasound has been used widely and frequently in the clinical eld of physiotherapy since World War II, such as an enhancer for healing and recovering process. But the nature of ultrasound practice has changed signicantly over the past two decades. There are many reports on the positive effects of ultrasound therapy at low intensities, similar to those of laser therapy. Tissues, essentially the dense collagenous ones, absorb the acoustic energy in the ultrasound exposure for therapeutic purpose. However, such an effect is a little less in muscle, nerve, and tissues with signicant edema (Watson 2006a, 2008). It is also used by a plenty of osteopaths, chiropractors, and sports therapists in their professional groups. Thus, ultrasound is involved in the treatment of a sprained ligaments, inamed tendons and tendon sheaths, lacerations, soft tissue damage, scar tissue, varicose ulcers, amputations, neuromata, strained and torn muscles, inamed and damaged joint capsules, fasciitis, delayed-onset muscle soreness, and the bone fractures. It is found that 93% of physiotherapists in Canada, 81% in Australia (93% in Brisbane), 64% in the northeastern United States, and 88% in the United Kingdom as well as in Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, and Switzerland use ultrasound daily (Robinson and Snyder-Mackler 1988, Lindsay et al. 1990, Pope et al. 1995, Robertson and Spurritt 1998). In the Netherlands, ultrasound is used in 17% of all episodes of care by the primary care physical therapists (Robebroeck et al. 1998). The number of annual ultrasound treatments performed in the United States is estimated to be 15 million (Naslund 2001).
