Rehabilitative Ultrasound Imaging (RUSI)
Rehabilitative Ultrasound Imaging (RUSI) of the lumbar spine stabilising muscles is a fairly new development in Physical Therapy. RUSI assists the physical therapist’s assessment and treatment of dysfunction of the deep stabilizing or core muscles: transversus abdominis (TrA) and multifidus (Mult) to achieve the best possible recovery from low back injury and to work to prevent recurrent and chronic low back pain.
The dysfunction seen with TrA following low back injury is one of a change in motor control or muscle activation pattern. This change can take several days to become obvious with RUSI. The earlier you the patient can be retrained in correct activation of this muscle group, the more chance there is to limit the loss of motor control experienced as a result of the injury. Early intervention may result in more complete recovery of TrA function over a shorter period of time.
However, ongoing pain can affect the ability of TrA to regain good function, and can slow the recovery process. The deep lumbar spine muscle called multifidus becomes inhibited following low back injury, with inhibition occurring initially only at the level of the injury. Assessment with RUSI in the acute stage, therefore, can confirm this finding of inhibition and determine the level of the injury. As the injury becomes more chronic, this inhibition of this deep low back muscle will spread to levels above and/or below the original site of the injury.
RUSI is a very powerful biofeedback tool to assist you to master an isolated gentle and appropriate contraction of your deep stabilizing muscles.
For more information please email us at info@maherPT.com