footDrHorsley Newsletter: 04/02/2007
Hello again from Amelia White Contents- Welcome Back!
- A Primer on "Footology"
- Important information about this Newsletter
- How to unsubscribe or update your Newsletter preferences
Welcome back to this week's discussion on foot facts -what you need to know.
A Primer on "Footology"
The foot could easily be argued as one of the most important
structures of the human anatomy. It provides us with balance,
allows us to be mobile, and is an excellent indicator regarding the
functionality of the many systems of the body. Though a very
complex structure, the foot can be explained and divided into
regions making "footology" fun and interesting. To begin
exploration of the foot, we will begin with the building blocks for
all structures of the body, bones.
Now for the grand prize, how many bones would you guess were in the
foot? Well you have 5 toes, also known as phalange’s, so lets start
the guessing at 5. Did you guess 10? How about 14? Well to save
you the suspense, the foot is composed of an amazing 26 bones and
usually 2 sesamoid bones! With so many bones in a small area, it
makes things a littler easier to know that each bone has its own
name and can be divided into one of three areas. Sort of like
living in a small city and having different neighborhoods. Well,
the foot would have 3 neighborhoods. Theses "hoods" would be the
Forefoot, Midfoot, and the Rearfoot. Now that we know the 3 hoods
of the foot, let’s explore who lives in each hood.
Let’s start by seeing who lives in Rearfoot. Now Rearfoot for our
purposes could be considered the really expensive neighborhood so
not that many people live there, only 2 matter of fact; Talus and
Calcaneus. Now across the railroad tracks is another hood called
Midfoot. Midfoot is better priced so we have 5 people living there;
Navicular, Cuboid, and then we have the Cuneiform Triplets (1st,
2nd, and 3rd). Still if you go under the bridge you come into the
happening area where all the shops and restaurants are called
Forefoot. This is the place to be and we have 19 residents; the
Metatarsal family consisting of 5 members (1-5), the Proximal
Phalange family consisting of 5 members (1-5), the Middle Phalange
family consisting of 4 members (2-5), and the Distal Phalange family
consisting of 5 members (1-5). As you can see, the Phalange’s have
Forefoot pretty much on lock down. Last but not least we have the 2
Sesamoid twins who live in the basement of the 1st Metatarsal’s
house.
This simplified understanding of the bones should be helpful in
knowing just how complex and what an important structure the foot
is. Do you think you could label the bones in the foot and
color-code them according to their different hoods? Have fun.
Credits:Material in this newsletter was contributed by Kairi Horsley -an aspiring student in podiatry school.
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