If you or someone you know has ever been pregnant, you have undoubtedly heard of (and possibly even seen) the use of an ultrasound machine as a method of identifying how well a baby is developing inside of its mother.  An ultrasound involves using very high frequency (extremely high pitched) sound waves, in order to examine in real time what is going on within a body without having to resort to using radioactive waves like x-rays.  A trained physician can tell an awful lot about what is going on inside of a body, using only an ultrasound image.  And ever since the old two dimensional ultrasounds were replaced by three dimensional ones, and even four dimensional versions (where one can see the movement of internal organs and blood, right as it is happening), the field has opened up to an event greater extent.

The ability to evaluate the flow of blood through your body’s veins and arteries is a process referred to as a Doppler ultrasound.  There are three different types of Doppler ultrasound currently in use in the medical field: Color Doppler, Power Doppler, and Spectral Doppler.  Color Doppler uses a computer to turn the various measurements in a group of different colors, so as to visualize the speed and direction that blood flows through any given blood vessel.  Power Doppler provides a more sensitive, detailed read out of the blood flow.  It can not tell the direction of blood flow, however.  Spectral Doppler provides a graphical display of blood flow instead of a visual one, displaying how much distance blood travels per given unit of time.

With all of these sophisticated ultrasound techniques, a lot of information can be figured out.  Symptoms can be quantified, such as pain, swelling and the effects of an infection.  Any internal organ can be checked out, such as the heart, liver, gallbladder, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, bladder, eyes, thyroid, scrotum and various female parts of a patient.  Pretty much any part of a person’s body can be seen in three dimensions, during the exact moment that it is working on doing its thing.