How X-rays Work

As with many of mankind's monumental discoveries, X-ray technology was invented completely by accident. In 1895, a German physicist named Wilhelm Roentgen made the discovery while experimenting with electron beams in a gas discharge tube. Roentgen noticed that a fluorescent screen in his lab started to glow when the electron beam was turned on. This response in itself wasn't so surprising -- fluorescent material normally glows in reaction to electromagnetic radiation -- but Roentgen's tube was surrounded by heavy black cardboard. Roentgen assumed this would have blocked most of the radiation.


Roentgen placed various objects between the tube and the screen, and the screen still glowed. Finally, he put his hand in front of the tube, and saw the silhouette of his bones projected onto the fluorescent screen. Immediately after discovering X-rays themselves, he had discovered their most beneficial application.

Roentgen's remarkable discovery precipitated one of the most important medical advancements in human history. X-ray technology lets doctors see straight through human tissue to examine broken bones, cavities and swallowed objects with extraordinary ease. Modified X-ray procedures can be used to examine softer tissue, such as the lungs, blood vessels or the intestines.

In this article, we'll find out exactly how X-rays machines pull off this incredible trick. As it turns out, the basic process is really very simple.

source from http://health.howstuffworks.com

CAT Scans

So what's a CAT scan, anyway?

"Computed Axial Tomography" is the process of using computers to generate a three-dimensional image from flat (i.e, two-dimensional) x-ray pictures, one slice at a time...

What do you mean by "slice"?

Well, imagine trying to visualize the inside of something like a fruitcake.

A fruitcake?

There's a lot of complexity on the inside that you can't guess from the outside, bits of fruit and nuts all over the place. How could you go about exploring the inside of a whole fruitcake?

Oh, I see what you mean now. If I sliced it up I could look at each slice and get an overall picture.

Right! Well, CAT Scanners do the same thing, but rather than actually cut people up, they use x-rays to make pictures of the slices.

OK, but we just said that CAT scans are useful because x-ray machines only take flat, two dimensional pictures and we want three dimensional pictures. So why is the process of imaging the flat "slices" difficult? Isn't making flat pictures what x-ray machines do?

The problem is that the flat x-ray we get is of the whole thing. It would be like crushing our fruitcake under a steam roller and saying, "There! Now we can see everything!" But we would have lost all the information about how "deep" the pieces of fruit and nuts were.

So how do we take x-rays of a slice in the middle? We could just turn the fruitcake sideways, but then all the other slices would get in the way. How do we take x-rays of only one slice?

Very good! That's exactly the right question to ask. Let's explore that.

Source from http://www.colorado.edu

Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging In Medical Therapy

Digital technology now makes Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging available to all. There now is a completely safe test that can aid in diagnosis, treatment and monitoring with absolutely no risk or radiation exposure.

DITI, or digital infrared thermal imaging, is a noninvasive diagnostic test that allows a health practitioner to see and measure changes in skin surface temperature. An infrared scanning camera translates infrared radiation emitted from the skin surface and records them on a color monitor. This visual image graphically maps the body temperature and is referred to as a thermogram. The spectrum of colors indicates an increase or decrease in the amount of infrared radiation being emitted from the body surface. In healthy people, there is a symmetrical skin pattern which is consistent and reproducible for any individual.

DITI is highly sensitive and can therefore be used clinically to detect disease in the vascular, muscular, neural and skeletal systems. Medical DITI has been used extensively in human medicine in the United States, Europe and Asia for the past 20 years. Until now, bulky equipment has hindered its diagnostic and economic feasibility. Now, PC-based infrared technology designed specifically for clinical application has changed all this.

Clinical uses for DITI include, defining the extent of a lesion of which a diagnosis has previously been made (for example, vascular disease); localizing an abnormal area not previously identified, so further diagnostic tests can be performed (as in Irritable Bowel Syndrome); detecting early lesions before they are clinically evident (as in breast cancer or other breast diseases); and monitoring the healing process before a patient returns to work or training (as in workman's compensation claims).

Medical DITI is filling the gap in clinical diagnosis; X-ray, Computed Tomography, Ultrasound and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), are tests of anatomy or structure. DITI is unique in its capability to show physiological or functional changes and metabolic processes. It has also proven to be a very useful complementary procedure to other diagnostic procedures.

Unlike most diagnostic modalities DITI is non invasive. It is a very sensitive and reliable means of graphically mapping and displaying skin surface temperature. With DITI you can diagnosis, evaluate, monitor and document a large number of injuries and conditions, including soft tissue injuries and sensory/autonomic nerve fiber dysfunction. Medical DITI can offer considerable financial savings by avoiding the need for more expensive investigation for many patients. Medical DITI can graphically display the biased feeling of pain by accurately displaying the changes in skin surface temperature. Disease states commonly associated with pain include Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or RSD, Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid arthritis.

Medical DITI can show a combined effect of the autonomic nervous system and the vascular system, down to capillary dysfunctions. The effects of these changes reveal an asymmetry in temperature distribution on the surface of the body. DITI is a monitor of thermal abnormalities present in a number of diseases and physical injuries. It is used as an aid for diagnosis and prognosis, as well as therapy follow up and rehabilitation monitoring, within clinical fields that include rheumatology, neurology, physiotherapy, sports medicine, oncology, pediatrics, orthopedics and many others.

Results obtained with medical DITI systems are totally objective and show excellent correlation with other diagnostic tests.

Thermographic screening is not covered by most insurance companies but is surprisingly affordable for most people. For more information or to find a certified clinic in your area, go to www.proactivehealthonline.com.

Brenda Witt is co-owner of Proactive Health Solutions in Southern California. She is an American College of Clinical Thermology (ACCT) certified thermographer in the Orange County area.