Basics
Ultrasound uses these types of waves to create images of the inside of the body.
What are sound waves?
This decade marked the first use of ultrasound for medical purposes.
What are the 1940s?
This principle explains how sound waves bounce off tissues and return to the transducer.
What is reflection?
Ultrasound is safest for this group of patients, which is why it's commonly used in prenatal care.
Who are pregnant women?
This computer-based technology is now being used to automatically improve image quality and help interpret results.
What is AI?
This small device is placed on the skin and sends out sound waves during an ultrasound exam.
What is a transducer (or probe)?
Ultrasound was first developed from this technology used during World War II to detect submarines.
What is echolocation? (Echolocation is finding the location of objects by reflecting waves)
After sound waves bounce off body structures, they return to the transducer and are converted into this type of signal.
What is an electrical signal?
Unlike X-rays or CT scans, ultrasound does not use this type of potentially harmful energy.
What is ionizing radiation?
This advance allowed ultrasound to display moving images on a screen, not just still pictures.
What is real-time imaging?
Sound waves used in ultrasound are above this frequency, making them inaudible to humans.
What is 20,000 Hz?
This Austrian neurologist was the first to use invent an ultrasound machine in the 1940s.
Who is Karl Dussik?
This effect explains how moving blood cells change the frequency of the ultrasound waves.
What is the Doppler effect?
This is the biggest disadvantage of ultrasounds
What is the quality of the image?
Used because it stops the sound waves from becoming fuzzy when they cross through the skin & into the transducer or vice versa
What is the ultrasound gel (coupling gel)?
Another term for ultrasounds
What is a sonogram?
This German physicist worked on early ultrasound echo techniques and helped pave the way for Doppler ultrasound.
Who is Christian Doppler?
Ultrasound transducers work using this effect, where certain crystals generate sound waves when an electric current is applied—and create electricity when sound waves return.
What is the piezoelectric effect?
Ultrasound cannot image well through this type of body material.
What is bone?
The four types of ultrasounds
What are transvaginal, therapeutic, carotid, & echodiagram?
Ultrasound imaging is considered "real-time" because it shows this.
What is movement inside the body (or live images)?
The three people who created the first ever transducer that could be moved by hand
Who are Joseph Holmes, William Wright, & Ralph Meyerdirk?
These special crystals inside the probe convert electrical energy into sound waves—and vice versa.
What are piezoelectric crystals?
The one possible danger for ultrasounds
What is the vibration will make molecules vibrate which can slightly increase the temp of certain tissues?
The width of the smallest blood vessel you can see in organs like the kidney & lymph nodes
What is two millimeter?