Ultrasound Service at Shriners Children’s Lexington Helps Detect Hip Dysplasia in Infants Sooner

[Ultrasound Service at Shriners Children’s Lexington Helps Detect Hip Dysplasia in Infants Sooner]

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Sarah Welch, radiologic technologist at Shriners Children's Lexington:

My name is Sarah Welch, and I'm a rad tech at Shriners.

For a while we've been doing ultrasounds for ganglion cells that can appear on hands and wrists.

And also, some of our children who have magic rods inserted in their back for scoliosis. We do some measurements on that to make sure that we're growing those MAGEC rods in the right way.

We wanted to add hip ultrasound for babies who may or may not have hip dysplasia.

When a baby is born, there's several risk factors that can lead to concerns about hip dysplasia. If the patient was breech while they were in utero, if they happen to have been the first-born female, and if there's low fluid levels during the pregnancy,

When a child is under the age of six months old, they're born to have not hardened enough, ossified enough to make them visible on X-ray. So, we could take an X-ray, but it doesn't really give us the right information that we want for, a child who may or may not have hip dysplasia.

Ultrasound can see the cartilage before it turns bony. And then we can confirm or check to see how, if they have hip dysplasia or if they don't.

So having the ultrasound is critical in diagnosing that have dysplasia is the gold standard of diagnosis for babies under six-month-old.

It is much easier to treat and less invasive to treat if we treat them when they're under six months old.

So having the ultrasound here at Shriners means that a patient could come in with a question as to whether or not they may have hip dysplasia.

And in, a couple of appointments, we can, diagnose it, get them in a harness if they need to be in a harness. Having it all in one location is super helpful.

We have this new ultrasound room, we were able to decorate it, in a way that we felt was kind of cozy and calming, to both the parents and the patient.

You know, we're, we're scanning patients who are under six-month-old, so we have to make sure to pay attention to the parent experience also as the baby experience. So, the light, the mobile with the music helps distract the baby.

And give them something fun to look at while, scanning their hips.

At Shriners, our only goal is to make sure that the child has all the care that they need and everything that they can.

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