hello anatomy friends this is dr alsup again and in this video we will be discussing
both anatomical position and anatomical relational terminology
the concepts in this video are extremely important not only in anatomy but as we get into the organ
systems you will find that a great deal of the conversations regarding the organs and its
surrounding structures will utilize these terms so this may be one that you want to return to often
particularly if you're new to anatomy and most of these terms are described with anatomical position
in mind so we need to understand what that is first and then we will get into the
most commonly utilized relational terms with a few examples of how to use them
so anatomical position is the way one should visualize the body
when describing structures on a patient say in your notes or when discussing with a colleague
and this is important this is not dependent on the actual position of the body
because as you might imagine you will be seeing patients in a multitude of different positions
such as supine which means lying on their back or prone laying face down they could
be on their sides they could be sitting up they could be moving so there are a lot of different
positions that you'll be seeing a patient so what you will describe is an individual
in anatomical position so the anatomical position is the person standing upright with their heads
their palms and this is key as well as their toes facing anteriorly or towards the front
and so these are all fairly natural positioning except for these palms that are facing anteriorly
which isn't typically how one stands naturally but in this position the bones of the forearm
are going to be parallel to one another or not crossing over one another so that is why the palms
are facing this way in anatomical position the feet will be parallel and not cross crossing over
one another as well so this is anatomical position sear this position into your head as understanding
this position is vital to understanding any of the relational terms we are about to discuss
now on to the actual relational terminology and as its name would suggest these terms are
relational in nature as in we are comparing one structure to another all right so this is key
so in other words you can't just simply say the shoulder is superior okay that's great but
superior to what and it wouldn't be superior in all comparisons so you must always have a to what
in terms of these descriptions so it would be correct to say the shoulder is superior to the
knee or say to the feet but the shoulder is not superior to say the scalp or the nose
so you always have to have the two things that you are comparing in these relational terminologies
so let's talk a bit more detail regarding superior and inferior and get used to this image here
because we're going to keep coming back to it i think it's an excellent reference for you as you
get more used to these terms all right so superior sometimes you will hear the more traditional term
cranial superior means towards the top of the cranium so the very top of the head
whereas inferior means more towards the soles of the feet all right or the bottom of the foot so
you will see that um you kind of have these arrows superior is going to be more this way inferior is
going to be more this way you may hear the term caudal which means towards the foot or tail region
which for humans the tail region is going to be the coccyx at the end of the vertebral column
all right but we we more typically use the term superior and inferior
so think this through with me the neck is going to be what to the thigh all right so here's
your neck i think we all probably know this and here is the thigh so the neck would be superior
to the thigh right so we would describe the neck as superior to the thigh or conversely
you could switch that around to the thigh is inferior to the neck
now moving on to anterior and posterior sometimes traditionally referred to as ventral and dorsal
anterior means more towards the front of the body whereas posterior means towards
the back of the body or the back surface so if i were to say to you the nose is what to the ear
at least in regards to these terms what would you say so is the nose anterior or is it posterior
to the ear well you would likely say that the is anterior towards to the ear because the the nose
is going to be more towards the front than the ears so the nose would be anterior to the ear
all right personal favorites of mine are medial and lateral
these terms will incorporate the median plane which is a vertical plane that is passing
right down the middle or passing longitudinally through the body so write down the middle portion
so things that are medial are going to be towards that median plane and things that
are lateral be away from the median plane so the trunk would the trunk be medial or lateral to the
upper limb and the trunk is just this middle this portion right here would the trunk be
medial or lateral to the upper lens well that trunk is very close to the median plane
even incorporating it some and so it would be more medial to the upper limbs
lastly let's discuss the terms proximal and distal
and these terms are unique in that they are actually independent of anatomical position
as these are comparisons to the body attachments or other linear structures
therefore when we're using the term proximal this means towards the trunk or the point of origin and
when i say point of origin you can think of say where an artery or a nerve branches from
its source so that would be the point of origin whereas distal is away from so in this example
is the is the palm proximal or distal to the shoulder so take a minute to kind of think about
that is the palm going to be further away from the trunk or closer to the trunk than the shoulder
it's going to be further away from the trunk right so the palm would be distal to the shoulder and so
we use these terms proximal and distal quite a bit in regard to the appendages or the upper and the
lower limbs in particular with its associated structures like the bones and the muscles
one last thing i want to touch on before we finish is that you can absolutely combine these terms to
be more descriptive and more exact so you could combine one example i just have here which is
only one example is superior lateral so you're combining superior and lateral so you could say
the eyes say are more superior lateral to the nose all right because they're going the eyes
are superior as well as lateral to the nose so you can absolutely combine these terms to be
more exact in your descriptions alright and here is our summary slide or points to take home slide
this one maybe more so than the others will be an excellent resource to refer to throughout
these early anatomy sessions as these terms are used so often particularly in the dissections
thank you for your time and attention here and have a great rest of your day