Anatomical Terminology: Location (Nursing)

00:01 So now let's discuss anatomical terminology.

00:04 It's very important that when you go into the medical field that you are very familiar with these terms as these are the terms that will be used inside of the medical building or inside of patient rooms, and on medical charts and medical histories.

00:24 So it's very important that you're familiar with these terms because they are universally used throughout the entire world and that makes it so that no matter where you are, you can interpret what you're seeing on charts.

00:39 So let's first start with different body positions. I'm standing in anatomical position.

00:47 I'm facing forward with my palms forward and my feet straight in front of me.

00:53 This is the standard body position for which we are going to relate all of the other body positions as we go through the lecture.

01:04 So now let's start with regions. There are several different regions of the body.

01:10 We'll start from the top and work our way down.

01:14 Starting at the top, we have the cephalic region. This is the head region of the body.

01:21 Just below that, we have the cervical region which is going to include the neck.

01:27 And just below that, we have the trunk which is going to include basically the middle part of the body.

01:35 If we look from the behind, we also have the lumbar or the dorsal region of the body.

01:43 We can also refer to the limbs, the upper limbs and the lower limbs.

01:50 So the upper limbs being your arms and the lower limbs being your legs.

01:54 So now let's discuss directional terms or the relationship of one organ in the body to another organ.

02:02 So we use these directional terms on medical charts and especially when you're doing things such as surgery.

02:10 So let's first start with top to bottom.

02:13 We don't say something is on top of something or something is under something.

02:17 We say superior and inferior.

02:21 So for example, the cervical region is superior to the trunk region or the lower limbs are inferior to the cephalic region.

02:33 So then we can also discuss things in terms of left and right, and also middle.

02:40 And for that, we use lateral and medial.

02:44 So things are lateral if they are toward the outside of the body and they are medial if they are toward the inside of the body.

02:53 So example of that would be your upper limbs are lateral to the mediastinum or the middle of the body whereas the sternum is medial to the ribcage.

03:10 So another way that we can discuss directions is proximal versus distal.

03:18 Proximal being close to the midline of the body or closer to the midline of the body and distal meaning farther away from the midline of the body.

03:28 A good example of this would be the hands are distal to the shoulder versus the shoulder being proximal to the hands.

03:39 So in this way, we're basically discussing the relationship to the middle of the body versus where each of these organs are located.

03:49 So along with that, especially when we work on imaging, it's also important to understand the different planes and sections of the body.

04:00 So there are multiple different planes.

04:03 So if I were to divide the body in left and right, I would do it using sagittal planes.

04:12 So a sagittal plane is going to divide the body by the midline.

04:17 In order to divide things from front to back, also referred to as anterior and posterior, I would use a frontal plane.

04:29 So the frontal plane is going to divide the body down the axis front to back.

04:35 And then, if I wanted to divide the body top to bottom or superior to inferior, I would do that using a transverse plane.

04:46 So again, these terms become very important when looking at images because it's very important to orient yourself when you're looking at an imagine so you know exactly what you're looking at when you're looking at that image.