Patient motion on a radiograph will have what type of appearance?

• A. Ghost Image
• B. Saturation
• C. Blurring of Anatomy
• D. Quantum Mottle

Answer: (C)

When a patient moves during the exposure, the recorded position of the anatomy changes as the image is being captured, causing the edges and details to smear together. This results in blurred structures with softened borders and a general loss of sharpness, which is the telltale appearance of motion. The other phenomena have different appearances: a ghost image is a faint secondary image of dense structures, saturation means the image is washed out to white from overexposure, and quantum mottle looks like grainy, noisy texture due to too few photons. Motion blur specifically reflects the lack of sharpness caused by movement during the shot.