Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and method for tracing movement of tissue

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus comprising:

• a transmitting and receiving unit configured to transmit an ultrasound wave to a target object in sequence and to receive the ultrasound wave as ultrasound data reflected from a certain region of the target object including a long axis direction blood vessel in sequence;
• a first memory unit configured to store the received ultrasound data in sequence;
• an image generation unit configured to generate an ultrasound image as a sectional image of the long axis direction blood vessel based on the received ultrasound data;
• a display unit configured to display the ultrasound image generated by the image generation unit;
• a region of interest setting unit configured to set a first region of interest on a vertical straight line at a right angle to the long axis direction blood vessel and a second region of interest on a wall of the blood vessel of the ultrasound image displayed in the display unit at a designated time, wherein the regions of interest are generated by ultrasound data stored in the first memory unit;
• a tracing unit configured to trace movement of tissue in the target object corresponding to the first region of interest and the second region of interest from the designated time to sequentially following thereafter by a gradient method using a spatial brightness gradient;
• and
• a second memory unit configured to store information of the movement of the tissue for a predetermined duration based on the movement of the tissue traced by the tracing unit.