HCA/220
January 29, 2012
Seven Organizational Approaches Paper
The seven organizational approaches to studying the human body include: body plans and directions, body cavities, quadrants and regions, anatomy and physiology, microscopic-to-macroscopic, body systems, and medical specialty. The body planes and directions approach is the division of the body into sections from front to back, right and left, top and bottom, along with the movement toward or away from the body planes. The Coronal Plane or frontal plane is a vertical plane that divides the body into front and back sections. The front of the body is known as the anterior or ventral section and the back of the body is known as the posterior or dorsal section. The Sagittal Plane is a vertical plane that divides the body into right and left sections. The body directions represent the movement toward or away from the midline. Moving from the side of the body toward the midline is moving in a medial direction. Moving from the midline toward the side of the body is moving in a lateral direction. These types of approaches may be used to take images from a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. The Transverse Plane is a horizontal plane that divides the body into top and bottom sections. The superior is the upper half of the body and the inferior is the lower half. Moving from the trunk of the body toward the end of a body limb is moving in a distal direction. Moving from the end of a limb toward the trunk of the body is moving in a proximal direction Turley, 2011).
The human body has five cavities; the cranial cavity, the spinal cavity, the thoracic cavity, the abdominal cavity, and the pelvic cavity. The cranial cavity protects the cranium which contains the brain, cranial nerves, and other structures. The thoracic cavity contains the lungs, trachea, esophagus, heart, and muscular diaphragm. The abdominal cavity is surrounded by abdominal muscles in