Question

List the planes in which each of the following wrist, hand, and finger joint movements occurs. List the axis of rotation for each movement in each plane

Answer 1

The movements of the hand are usually described in anatomical terms. These include:

Flexion – A bending movement that decreases the angle between two parts.

Eg- You flex your fingers when you clench your fist.

Extension – A straightening movement that increases the angle between two parts.

Eg- Stretching out your fingers. Flexion and extension are opposites of one another.

Abduction – A motion that pulls a structure away from the middle finger.

Eg- Spreading out your fingers.

Adduction – A motion that brings a structure toward the middle finger.

Eg- Closing the fingers together.

The skeleton of the hand can be divided up into three sections: the carpus, metacarpus and the phalanges.

Wrist-

The “true wrist” can be found on the proximal part of the hand and consists of eight small bones, called as carpals, which are linked together by ligaments.

The carpal bones of the wrist glide against each other, making the carpus quite flexible as a whole.

The bones lie in two irregular rows, with four bones in each row. The bones in one row are called the scaphoid, lunate, triquetral and pisiform. The scaphoid and lunate come into contact with the radius,forming the wrist joint.

The trapezium, trapezoid, capitates and hamate are the bones making up the other row.

Fingers-

The digits of the upper limb, the fingers, are numbered from 1 to 5 beginning with the thumb.The phalanges refer to the miniature long bones within the fingers.Except for the thumb, each finger has three phalanges – the distal (the bone on the tip of the finger), middle and proximal (the bone at the base of the finger) phalanx. The thumb has no middle phalanx, giving a total of 14 phalanges in each hand.

Three basic reference planes are used in anatomy: They are Listed below

A sagittal plane, also known as the longitudinal plane, is perpendicular to the ground and divides the body into left and right. The midsagittal or median plane is in the midline i.e. it would pass through the midline structures

e.g. navel or spine, and all other sagittal planes are parallel to it. Median can also refer to the midsagittal plane of other structures, such as a digit.

A coronal or frontal plane is perpendicular to the ground and divides the body into dorsal and ventral portions.

A transverse plane, also known as an axial plane or cross-section, divides the body into cranial (head) and caudal (tail) portions.

It is parallel to the ground, which (in humans) separates the superior from the inferior, or put another way, the head from the feet.

When describing anatomical motion, these planes describe the axis along which an action is performed. So by moving through the transverse plane, movement travels from head to toe.

example- if a person jumped directly up and then down, their body would be moving through the transverse plane in the coronal and sagital planes.

Axis-

An axis is a straight line around which an object rotates. Movement at the joint take place in a plane about an axis. There are three axis of rotation.

1.Sagital axis - passes horizontally from posterior to anterior and is formed by the intersection of the sagital and transverse planes.

2.Frontal axis - passes horizontally from left to right and is formed by the intersection of the frontal and transverse planes.

3.Vertical axis - passes vertically from inferior to superior and is formed by the intersection of the sagital and frontal planes.