Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
It's easy to become confused when trying to describe locations in the body. Terms that make sense
in everyday life, like "beside", "under", and "on top of", are simply too fuzzy when talking about a
three-dimensional human body. For example, consider a phrase like "an inch below the navel". Is the
speaker looking for a point an inch toward the feet, or toward the spine? For clarity, we need points
of reference.
circumduction, in which a joint smoothly moves through flexion, abuduction, extension and
adduction in a circular motion.
There are also more specific terms of movement for different structures - pronation, supination,
inversion, eversion, nutation, and counternutation, to name a few. These are outside the scope of
this article.
Building Confidence with Anatomical Language
Anatomical terms may seem unnecessarily complex and formal, but they make anatomy study much
easier to understand. Learning terminology is a great place to start thinking about anatomy.