Using ultrasound to assess first year sonography students for wrist injury

Various studies have reported that 80-90% of diagnostic medical sonographers who work in the United States of America report they are scanning with musculoskeletal pain. One of the most common work related injuries incurred by sonographers is carpal tunnel syndrome which results from extrinsic compression on the median nerve within the carpal tunnel. While many studies have been conducted on sonographers to see if they experience pain while scanning, none have hypothesized how soon after entering the workforce will new sonographers begin to manifest signs of a repetitive injury. The purpose of this study was to discover if first year ultrasound students would develop signs of swelling or injury of the median indicating carpal tunnel syndrome. Using the diagnostic criteria of measuring the cross-sectional area of the median nerve within the car-pal tunnel, a group of first year sonography students were evaluated. Because the participants were not per-forming ultrasound scans as frequently during their first year a dramatic increase in the cross-sectional area of the median nerve within the carpal tunnel was not expected