28/04/2026
🫁📊 A TOOL TRANSFORMING RESPIRATORY CARE 🫁✨
Respiratory physiotherapy focuses on the lungs and breathing.
Traditionally, clinicians in this field relied on stethoscopes, chest X rays and observation to understand what was happening inside a patient’s lungs.
Over the past decade, a small number of respiratory physiotherapists across Australia have incorporated ultrasound into clinical practice, reshaping the way they assess and care for patients with respiratory conditions.
Dr Louise Hansell, a researcher at Royal North Shore Hospital, is one of only two respiratory physiotherapists in the Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSLHD) and among approximately 12 across Australia trained to use the equipment.
For physiotherapists, it’s a game changer. “It is an emerging diagnostic tool,” says Louise.
“The idea with lung ultrasound is that it's a non-invasive way that we can image the lungs without putting our patients at risk so it doesn't expose them to any radiation,” she says. “It’s also really quick and readily available. We can scan people at the bedside and get results immediately, which helps us with our diagnostic ability and our clinical decision making.”
Respiratory physiotherapists usually work with people recovering from surgery, patients with pneumonia or chronic lung disease, and critically ill patients on ventilators in intensive care units (ICU).
As the tool is so novel in her field, Louise has conducted several research projects exploring its use.
One study involved 43 mechanically ventilated patients in ICU and found that physiotherapist performed ultrasound could reliably detect changes in their lungs, making it possible to identify collapse, fluid or other dysfunction—and track response to treatment.
In a separate study, Louise demonstrated that for physiotherapists, lung ultrasound had a “really high diagnostic accuracy” when compared with traditional tools such as stethoscopes and chest X-rays. It was almost as good as a CT scan, which is considered the gold standard for diagnosing certain lung conditions.
Beyond ICU, Louise is now using ultrasound to investigate unexplained breathlessness, working alongside speech pathology researcher Dr Danielle Stone to investigate how the diaphragm, our main muscle of breathing, behaves.
As ultrasound slowly embeds itself into respiratory physiotherapy practice, Louise believes the profession is only beginning to uncover what the technology can reveal. “It’s a constant discovery process,” she says. “It's exciting and innovative.”
