Alright, this is Professor McCurdy here going over bones of the appendicular skeleton. We're currently going over the 54 bones that are located in your hand. When you consider both hands, I guess there's 27 in each.
There are 8 carpal bones, 5 metacarpals, and 14 phalanges, the bones in your finger. Hopefully you can recognize that this one here is a left hand and this one is a right hand. Perhaps I should swap them out.
In order to figure that out you kind of have to recognize that this is the anterior side of the hand, the palm side, and not the... Posterior side, right? So a lot of the difference you can tell is down here in the wrist. Speaking of the wrist, each of these carpals has a name. It's usually very helpful to break them up into a sort of a proximal row and a distal, sorry, proximal row.
Here and a distal row there. Sorry it's hard to operate the pointer and the camera at the same time. So generally I start on the thumb side or that would be the lateral side in the proximal row and then move distally.
So this first one is the scaphoid or it's rather long. This one is the lunate. It looks like a crescent moon in a particular view. This three-sided bone is the triquetrum and sitting on top of the triquetrum is the pisiform.
Starting back over in the distal row on the thumb side, this is the trapezium which is next to the metacarpal of the thumb. This one, this little one, is the trapezoid. This big old one right here, this is the the capitate right right right along the uh purple of the the middle finger and then the um you know the fourth and the fifth digit sort of attach here to the hammate which has this sort of hook on it H-8 hook, both start with H's, help me remember.
As far as your metacarpals, these are simply numbered. So this bone would be referred to as metacarpal 1, or the first metacarpal, or the metacarpal of the thumb. Metacarpal 2, metacarpal 3, metacarpal 4, metacarpal 5. As far as your phalanges, you would start with the first digit. The one that attaches to the metacarpal is called a proximal phalanx. A phalanx is actually the singular of phalanges.
Phalanges is plural. So this would be proximal phalanx 1 or the right proximal phalanx 1. This would be the distal. Phalanx 1, right? The ones in the fingertips are distal. Now the thumb just has two phalanges, right?
Proximal phalanx 1 and distal phalanx 1. All of your other digits actually have three. This would be proximal phalanx 2, middle phalanx 2, and distal phalanx 2. Proximal phalanx 3, middle phalanx 3. distal phalanx three and then so on and so forth for the remainder of the bones in your hand. Biggest issue I tend to encounter is students just not realizing when you're looking at the anterior or palm side of the hand versus the posterior or I guess dorsal side of the hand because you notice that if one hand, if you're looking at the palmar view and the other one, the back side of the hand, you know, it makes it more difficult to tell that this one is a right hand and this one over here is a left.