CEP 818: How Do I Love Thee: Modeling

Modeling is a tool used to make sense of complex ideas or concepts. It can help take a complex idea and make it simpler to comprehend. Rehabilitation is very three-dimensional concept as it is comprised of working one-on-one with another human being. Everything being done is in the third dimension.

Without a doubt, knowledge of anatomy is the foundation of rehabilitation. It helps determine such things including what is injured, range of motion considerations and movement patterns. It is impossible to learn the depths of human anatomy while looking at somebody's skin! Learning anatomy via charts and pictures in a two-dimensional aspect is much easier, as seen in the first picture. This is typically done in the form of text books and handouts. But then, after learning in 2D, moving to 3D is essential; after all, rehabilitation is performed in 3D.Three-dimensional models of various body parts aid in this type of tactile learning. Most models allow for movement which aids in the understanding of injury mechanisms, movement limitations, and can even aid in the development of palpation skills. As you can see, the picture on the right of the shoulder model is identical to the picture on the left, except the model allows for kinesthetic play.

I chose this particular representation because knowledge of anatomy is so crucial. Anatomy is a topic that can be easily zoomed in or out on. Zooming in could get as close as looking at mitochondria or osteocytes (bone cells). Zooming out gives you a full-body picture a human being. This genre of material is easily translated from 3D to 2D and back again, almost flawlessly, as can be seen above.

I considered for a minute how it would be to learn anatomy only in the third-dimension. Then thought historically about this topic and realized that's exactly how these maps of the human body came to be. Nobody just knew where the muscles of the rotator cuff inserted without actually seeing it first hand. Granted, deductive reasoning could give a decent answer, but that answer is still assumed as watching the movement of the shoulder is still through skin and an accurate picture of the shoulder is not in place. Having a lesson or two utilizing a cadaver is luxury and each student having a model of each body part to take home and study is not cost-efficient. Having one or both of these available would aid in the understanding of anatomy though learning via pictures is much more practical.