Functional Anatomy and the Hip Bone.

The hip bone is also known as the os coxa or the innominate bone (the latter meaning "the bone with no name" ...pretty funny as this bone actually has THREE names). The hip bone is made of three separate bones that fuse together. The hip bone is complete (i.e. completely fused) at the end of puberty. The three bones that make the hip bone are the ilium, the ischium, and the pubis.

Some easy to palpate features of the hip bone:

- The ischium is the bone part in your bottom that allows you to sit.
- The iliac crest is the area of the hip where you rest your hands when you place them on your hips.
- Skin dimples are located on the back. They are spots of the skin that has no muscle underneath; therefore they lie in direct contact with the bone.
- The boney front part of the hip bone is the anterior superior iliac spine, while the boney back part of the hip bone (felt on the back side, directly below the skin dimples) is the posterior superior iliac spine.
- While you won't be able to feel this part now, you were able to feel the ischium as a baby because it is the smooth surface of the hip bone that helps to form the birth canal.

Speaking of palpations, yesterday we started learning "functional anatomy". While I have been learning Anatomy since day one, it has mostly been theory. This part of the course is focused on palpation and on the actual movements of the body. We have a functional anatomy lab too where we are required to palpate a partner in order to identify various muscles, tendons, bones, arteries, nerves, etc. on the human body.