A sonographer can accumulate a lot of tension in a day's work, but you don't have to be a Yoga Master to effectively combat stress. 

Sonographers combine compassion and skill with heavy workloads and long hours, creating a great deal of stress in their daily lives.  Recently, Mark Roozen and Doug Wuebben wrote a great article on AuntMinnie.com showing how tennis balls, foam rollers and other items can be used to help relieve a sonographer's physical tensions.

By applying pressure to certain trigger points in the body, the techniques they describe have been used by therapists for years to  help muscles relax and relieve pain. Whether using a tennis ball on the feet and back or a foam roller on the shoulders, they demonstrate great ways to help keep your body in good working order.

Well designed ultrasound components also help to keep tension from building up during a long day of scanning. One of our favorite ergonomic innovations is the Esaote Appleprobe design. These probes are uniquely designed to minimize the pinching grips required to scan with typical probes and leverage the natural shape of the palm to help exert pressure and direct the probe.

Many of the sonographers that use these probes really like the way they make them feel at the end of the day. If you'd like to try out the Appleprobe design, send us a note or give us a call. We'll be glad to give you a 'test drive'.

Here's the full article by Mark and Doug on Auntminnie.com

With Valentine's Day coming up, many of us are thinking about chocolates, cards  and flowers for our sweethearts. But what about those who have recently lost someone they love? 

A recent study by medics at the University of Aberdeen found that 'broken heart syndrome', also known as acute stress-induced cardiomyopathy, doesn't heal as rapidly as we thought. It turns out that time may heal a broken heart...but it requires more time that we thought.

Four months after the triggering event, typically a major stress or trauma, echocardiograms show the heart as normal, but more advanced cardiac MR and spectroscopy reveal continued abnormalities.

Read the entire article in Newsweek here.
Or a story from the UK here.