What is osteoarthritis and what is therapeutic ultrasound?
Osteoarthritis is a disease of the joints, such as your knee or hip. When the joint loses cartilage, the bone grows to try and repair the damage. Instead of making things better, however, the bone grows abnormally and makes things worse. For example, the bone can become misshapen and make the joint painful and unstable. This can affect your physical function or ability to use your knee. Therapeutic ultrasound means using sound waves to try and relieve pain or disability. Your doctor or physiotherapist will use a round-headed wand or probe on the skin of the painful area. Ultrasound gel is used on the wand and on your skin to make it more comfortable and help the sound waves reach the affected area. Best estimate of what happens to people with osteoarthritis who have had therapeutic ultrasound for a duration of 2-8 weeks: Pain -People who used therapeutic ultrasound had an improvement in their pain of about 3 on a scale from 0 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain) after using it up to 2 months
