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Unit 1 Health Informatics Career Pathway
than ventral surfaces. The backside of the upper and lower
arm is dorsal. These surfaces move away from each other as
the elbow is bent.
The legs on the human forms in Figure 5.13 illustrate the
differences between the terms ventral and dorsal as opposed to
anterior and posterior. When the knee is bent, the two lighter,
ventral surfaces pulled toward each other are on the backside
of the legs. The back of the legs are posterior by position, but
they are ventral based on the way they move. The surfaces of
the legs turned to the front in SAP are anterior by position, but
they are dorsal based on the way they move. The hip joints of
a human rotate the dorsal side of the legs toward the front to
support us in a standing position.
You can see the difference between humans and four-
legged animals in Figure 5.13. If you rub the belly of a dog,
you will notice that the light coloring of its ventral underbelly
carries over onto the ventral inside of its legs. If a person lies
on his or her back like a dog and lets his or her legs relax and
roll out to the sides, the lighter (ventral) surface of the person’s
legs will also rotate more toward the front side of their body.
When they stand on two legs, these ventral surfaces will
rotate in toward the back of the body.
Body Regions and Sections
When a patient complains of pain, healthcare workers need an
easy way to communicate with each other about the different areas
of the patient’s body where the pain may be. This is why the medical
community has given names to different body regions. These names
provide a common language so you can easily refer to different areas on
the surface of the body.
Some of these terms, such as abdomen and calf, are part of our everyday
language. Many of the terms come from the names of the bones under the
skin that act as landmarks and give the areas their shape. For example,
the head may be referred to as the cranial region, the thigh as the femoral
region, and the shoulder blade area as the scapular region. The cervical
region in the neck, thoracic region on the chest, and lumbar region of the
lower back are named for their types of vertebrae. The gluteal region is
named for the muscles of the buttocks.
Other regional terms are used more specifi cally in the medical fi eld.
For example, a nurse wraps the blood pressure cuff around the part of
the upper arm called the brachial (BRAY-kee-uhl) region. Blood is usually
drawn from the antecubital (an-tee-KYU-bih-tuhl) region on the inside
of the elbow. The axillary (AK-suh-lair-ee) region is the term a medical
assistant uses when taking a temperature under the arm. Understanding
these regional terms helps you to communicate without additional
explanation. The health informatics worker must know these regional
terms to arrive at correct procedural codes.
The abdomen is such a large area that it is often divided into smaller
sections, which are either quadrants or regions (Figure 5.14). This helps
healthcare professionals focus on which abdominal organs may be
involved when a patient complains of abdominal pain. One method of
body region
an area of the body with
a specifi c name, which is
used as a point of reference
when discussing anatomy
Humerus
Radius
Ulna
Proximal
Distal
Figure 5.12 Proximal
means close to the site of
attachment. Distal means
farther away from the site of
attachment.