Tues & Wed - Days 51 & 52! :)

Well, this blog is going to need to be somewhat study oriented because I have a test in Anatomy tomorrow and I really want to be able to shave - Let's see what I know - 

Anterior Hand - that's the palm of the hand for you lay people out there :)

at the base of the palm we have the ever popular carpal tunnel otherwise known as the transverse carpal ligament.  It extends from the hamate bone to the trapezium and more specifically from the hook of the hamate.  There are 10 structures that run through the carpal tunnel, 9 tendons and one nerve.  Four of the tendons that are most deep are the tendons from the flexor digitorum profundus muscle and the four above that are from the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle.

For those of you playing along at home, you can break out your anatomy coloring book and turn to page 59 to follow along w/ the intrinsic muscles of the hand - 

We remember All For One and One For All to remember the order of the intrinsic muscles, medially to laterally - 

we have the Abductor digiti mini, flexor digiti minimi brevis, opponens digiti minimi, adductor pollicis, opponens pollicis, flexor pollicis brevis and abductor pollicis brevis.

The nerve going to the ulnar side of the hand (which would also be the medial side) is the ulnar nerve - more specifically, it's the deep branch of the ulnar nerve

The arteries going to the three muscles on the medial side of the palm which is also known as the hypothenar compartment are the superficial palmar branch of the ulnar artery and the dorsal carpal branch of the ulnar artery.  The arteries for the thumb side - aka thenar compartment would be the superficial branch of the radial artery.

What's neat about the arteries is that, as a review, I drew all the arteries I knew of from the lateral border of the first rib down to the tips of the fingers and then I counted all the arteries I drew and I came up with 36 different arteries I just happen to know off the top of my head which is pretty cool :)

the three thenar compartment muscles originate from the flexor retinaculum (which itself makes up the roof of the carpal tunnel) the tubercle of the scaphoid and the trapezium.  The insertion for the FPB and APB are on the base of the proximal phalange on the lateral side of the bone.

the nerves going to the three little muscles in the thenar compartment are only slightly more complex than the single deep branch of the ulnar nerve going to the hypothenar compartment

all three thenar muscles get the recurrent branch of the median nerve and the deep head of hte flexor pollicis brevis (FPB) muscle gets the deep branch of the ulnar nerve (along with it's hypothenar buddies)  :)

I've got more to learn - much more - 

future visions are to obtain at least two more white boards and put them where my TV now sits so I can look at my latest creations while I'm on the treadmill - the tv doesn't really serve much of a purpose and certainly doesn't need to be in front of my treadmill -