MSKU-5: Diagnostic Musculoskeletal Ultrasound of the Spine
Diagnostic Musculoskeletal Ultrasound (MSKU) is an evidence-based, cost efficient, imaging modality. MSKU has diagnostic accuracy comparable to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for common soft tissue pathology, including enthesopathy, tendinopathy, ligament pathology, joint pathology, and compressive neuropathies of the cervical/thoracic/lumbar spine and sacroiliac joint. Licensed healthcare professionals including physical therapists (PT), medical doctors (MD), osteopathic doctors (DO), Chiropractors (DC), physician assistants (PA) and nurse practitioners (NP) meet the educational requirements to practice MSKU and work towards the prerequisites needed to sit for the national registry exam in musculoskeletal sonography (RMSK) and or advanced courses in MSKU.
This advanced three-day live diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound course includes 70% hands-on practical training and 30% didactic instruction. This course focuses on the essential components of diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound of the cervical/thoracic/lumbar spine and the sacroiliac joint. Both normal anatomy and pathology of the spinal regions will be covered. This course does include but is not limited to the identification of the spinal muscle/fascial layering system, facet joints, costovertebral joints, interspinal ligaments, iliolumbar ligaments, sacroiliac joint/ligaments and associated spinal nerve distributions. Both normal anatomy and pathology of the spine will be covered.
Tissue specific symptom generators for cervicogenic headache/dizziness, facet joint syndrome, axial skeleton ligament pathology, fascial tears and subluxations will be identified. Lecture and live demonstrations with expert sonographers, using state of the art equipment, are utilized to prepare the participant for extensive scanning of the spinal regions during the laboratory sessions. This is an advanced clinical diagnostic ultrasound course and is not required for preparation of the national RMSK registry exam.
