Joints of Digits – Joints of Upper Limb

00:00 Now let’s look at the joints of the digits, the joints of the digits, the metacarpophalangeal joints. Articulation is the head of the metacarpals with the base of the proximal phalanges. So here, we can see the metacarpal and here we can see the proximal phalanx. So here, we’ve got the metacarpophalangeal joints. And these are going to be reinforced by strong palmar ligaments, strong palmar ligaments which we can see here running from the metacarpals to the phalanges. And we can also see we have some collateral ligaments that are running alongside the metacarpophalangeal joints. These are collateral ligaments running either side of the metacarpophalangeal joints, running from the heads of the metacarpals to the bases of the phalanges. We then have interphalangeal joints where again we can see some tough palmar ligaments here. And again, we have some collateral ligaments.

01:01 And the interphalangeal joints, the articulations, are between the heads of the phalanges with the base of the more distal phalanx. So the ligaments, here we can see we’ve got strong palmar ligaments here. We can see we’ve got collateral ligaments, that are this time between the phalanges. So we've got collateral ligaments here, another collateral ligament here, and you can see we’ve got some strong palmar ligaments. Movements that occur at the metacarpophalangeal joints and the interphalangeal joints we’ll see down here at the bottom.

01:37 The metacarpophalangeal joints, we have flexion and extension. We have abduction and adduction.

01:43 And we have some circumduction. Only flexion and extension of the metacarpophalangeal joints occur at the thumb. At the interphalangeal joint, we have flexion and extension.

01:58 The only movements that are allowed to occur at the interphalangeal joints are flexion and extension. So in this lecture, we’ve looked at the whole series of joints associated with the upper limb. We’ve looked at the sternoclavicular joint between the manubrium of the sternum and the sternal end of the clavicle. We’ve looked at the acromioclavicular joint between the acromion of the scapula and the acromial end of the clavicle. We’ve looked at the glenohumeral joint between the scapula and the humerus. And then we looked at the multiple joints associated with the elbow. We looked at the proximal and distal radio-ulnar joints between the radius and the ulnar. We then looked at multiple joints within the wrist including the distal radius with the proximal row of carpal bones. And then we looked at the carpal joints, carpometacarpal, metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints.