Directional terms and body planes

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Anatomists use specific terms to clearly communicate the location of structures within the human body. These are directional terms, regional terms and body planes. To avoid confusion and miscommunication, we always use a standard reference point for these terms; this reference point is the anatomical position. The anatomical position is when the body is standing erect, with the face looking forwards, the feet parallel, the arms hanging at the sides, the palms facing forwards and the thumbs pointing away from the body.

Directional terms and body planes allow us to describe the relationship between anatomical structures, for example, the wrist is distal to the elbow, the ears are lateral to the eyes, the nose is located in the midsagittal plane.

Watch the following videos to learn more about these important anatomical terms!

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Learn the main anatomical planes and directional terms with the following PDF worksheets.

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