How to Deal with Electrical Interference on Your Ultrasound Machine
Jun 22, 2023
Introduction: How to Deal with Electrical Interference on Your Ultrasound Machine
Welcome to another blog post where I share some tips and tricks on how to use your ultrasound machine effectively and efficiently.
Today, I want to talk about a common problem that you may encounter when performing ultrasound scans: electrical interference.
Electrical interference is when your ultrasound machine picks up unwanted electrical signals from other devices or sources and displays them as bright white lines across the image. This can make it hard to see the structures you are scanning, and can also affect the quality of the image.
What Causes Squiggly Lines on the Ultrasound Image?
One of our FOVU community members reached out to me as they were experiencing electrical interference - click here for an example of the kind of image they were seeing:
They wrote:
“We’ve been enjoying doing your exercises today, but I hope you can help. We have a new sonoscape, E2V and on a couple of occasions we’ve got a squiggly picture like this. I’ve been altering frequency and gain, I think I’ve got good skin contact. It’s also on both probes. I don’t know if it’s a user setting error or something wrong with the machine.”
How to Remove Electrical Interference from Your Ultrasound Machine
So, what can you do if this happens to you?
First of all, don’t panic. This is not a sign that your machine or probe is broken. It is just a temporary glitch that can be fixed easily.
The first thing you can do is unplug your machine from the power source and run it on battery mode. This will eliminate any electrical interference from the mains supply and should clear up the image.
If that doesn’t work, or if you need to keep your machine plugged in, then you need to find out what is causing the interference. It could be any device that emits electrical signals, such as an ECG machine, a multi-parameter monitor, a mobile phone, a computer, or even a fluorescent light.
Try to move your machine away from these sources, or turn them off if possible. You may also want to check the cables and connectors of your machine and probe and make sure they are not damaged or loose.
Once you have removed the source of interference, your image should return to normal.
I hope this blog post was helpful and informative. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below.
How to Learn More About Emergency Ultrasound with Fovu
To learn more about how to use your ultrasound machine effectively and efficiently so scanning feels easier, take a look at my list of online courses. Each course is designed to take you to the next level of ultrasound mastery so you can feel confident scanning whatever is put in front of you.
