Perfecting prevention of occupational pathologies in medical sonographers

Abstract

Introduction: Ultrasound has a negative effect on the health of medical staff exposed to it in their work. This effect is manifested primarily by symptoms of vegetative polyneuropathy of the upper extremities, which lead to sensory, vascular and trophic changes. The objectives: of this paper is to determine the prevalent complaints of worsened health in medical sonographers and to develop new, more advanced methods of prevention. The subjects of the study are sonographers working at medical facilities of the Grodno district of Belarus. Materials and Methods: We used surveys to collect data describing the health of medical sonographers and the measures they take to prevent the harmful effects of ultrasund on thier bodies. We developed and assessed the efficacy of our method by then used already for one year to prevent polyneuropathy of the upper extremities. The method makes use of a spraying brush mounted on a cold and hot water faucet. The collected data were treated with statistics software package. Statistics 6.1. Results: Medical sonographers with ten or more years of work experience in the field had complaints mostly of pathalogical changes in the hands: excessive sweating, intermittent pain, cold sensation in the hands, as well as irritability, emotional liability, unsteady blood pressure, head aches and lumber pain. The study revealed inconsistent use of workwear: only 18% of the respondents reported use of protective gloves all the times, while 21% of the respondents use them occasionally and the rest only when their work is checked by superiors. Only 58% of the respondents regularly take planned breaks, while 24% take them sometimes. Only 28% of the respondents do a regular massage of their hands, while 18% do this occasionally and 54% do not do this at all. 14% of sonographers with five or more years of work experience resorted to rehab exercises only after having felt lumber and thoracic back pain symptoms. Only 21% of the respondents take their meals at regular times. Hydro massage therapy of hands and forearms helped decrease the complaints of pain in the forearm and shoulder region, decreased sweating and cold sensation in 75% of sonographers with 10 or more years of experience and in 92% with experience between 5 and 10 years. Conclusions: An efficient method to prevent polyneuropathy of the upper extremities in medical sonographers is warm water hydro massage therapy of the hands and forearms for 2 minutes every hour of work. A special spray brush mounted on the water faucet can be used for such therapy.