The thumb and the fate of a person. Fingers bend in the opposite direction. Why are some people able to bend their finger in the opposite direction?

There are people whose thumbs move in a very special way. Perhaps you also have a friend who has repeatedly surprised you with the fact that his thumb can bend 90 degrees in the direction opposite to his palm. What is the reason for this “focus”? It's simple - he has a Hitchhiker's thumb! Let's figure out what it is...

Hitchhiker's finger is popularly known as distal hypermobility of the thumb. It is known that the joint of the fingertip is called distal. For most people, it serves to straighten and bend forward (towards the palm) the thumb. But the Hitchhiker's thumb allows the distal joint to bend towards the back of the hand at an angle of 90 degrees!

A person with such a finger can bend it not only forward, but also in the opposite direction! From the outside it looks very unusual! Sometimes there are other variations of the hypermobile finger. Thus, some people can bend their thumbs backwards, but are limited in their forward movements. Others can move their thumbs equally in all directions.

To understand why this happens, we need knowledge from the field of genetics. It turns out that there is a special gene that determines the mobility of the thumbs. By the way, it’s called the “thumb flexion gene.”

There are several alleles for the thumb flexion gene. Alleles are variations within the same gene. For example, one allele makes your thumbs perfectly straight. Another allele allows the thumbs to bend 90 degrees, both backwards and forwards...

It is known that we inherit all genes from our parents. Thus, each of us has two genes (one from mom and one from dad) that determine the possibility of bending the thumb. Therefore, your thumbs will bend depending on which alleles you received from your parents.

All genetic traits divided into dominant and recessive. The straight thumb is dominant trait, so people with such fingers make up the vast majority. Thumb Hitchhiking is a recessive trait. For a person to exhibit this feature, he must receive the recessive allele “thumb flexion gene” from both parents.

In other words, the Hitchhiker's finger means that two things have come together in your genetic code. recessive gene responsible for flexing the thumb. Naturally, this happens very rarely! Not many people can boast that they have seen with their own eyes a thumb that can bend back ninety degrees. So, if you have such a feature, you can safely consider yourself a unique person!

Illustration copyright Thinkstock

There are no people in nature whose joints actually bend in both directions, although some of us do have very elastic joints. And this property can lead to very unexpected effects, says the correspondent.

No doubt you know someone (or, more likely, you knew as a child) who boasted that their joints bent in both directions. To prove this, these braggarts bent their thumbs into reverse side so that he could touch their wrist. However, despite all their boasting, these schoolyard performance artists are not actually medical phenomena. By at least, people cannot have joints that bend in both directions. But what about these braggarts, whose bodies and limbs are capable of wobbling in the most incredible way, as if on hinges? They are simply incredibly flexible.

Doctors and scientists call this joint hypermobility or joint elasticity. It just means that some people can bend their joints more than others. Most of us can bend our thumb a few degrees, but some can bend it at a greater angle. We can all bend at the waist, but for some individuals, their lumbosacral joints allow them to lean back and place both hands on the floor. Each of us can spread our legs wide apart, but only some hip joint so agile that it allows them to do the splits.

And in order to talk about joint hypermobility, such flexibility must be innate, and not acquired as a result of training or stretching. Some athletes and dancers, for example, can eventually train their bodies to become more and more flexible, but the joint hypermobility that is affecting us right now is innate.

In order to understand why a joint can be more or less flexible, a brief lesson in human anatomy is required. There are two factors that limit joint mobility: the shape of the bones and the cartilage, or ligaments. Michael Habib, an anatomist and vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Southern California, says: "You may have a hard time physical exercise– it could be because something is pushing against something – or you could have a ligament that will hold everything in place.”

Hooks and grooves

If a person can bend their thumb all the way to their wrist, it is usually because their ligaments allow them to do so. “If you are born with weak ligaments, they will be more flexible,” says Habib.

On the other hand, some of those individuals whose joints seem to bend in both directions owe their flexibility to the structure of their own bones. A typical case of hypermobility occurs in the elbow joints. Some people are able to bend their elbow joint in the "wrong" direction, resulting in an angle greater than 180 degrees.

There is a certain process of bone that forms the sharp part of the shoulder, it is called olecranon or olecranon. "It has a small hook, but it's actually quite a big hook," explains Habib. This hook is located in a small groove located with back side humerus; this is the upper bone of the arm - brachial bone or humerus. And when you straighten your arm, the hook slides and falls into this little groove. When the hook hits the end of the groove, you can't bend your arm any further.

"If your olecranon small size or if the groove is deep, then you can extend your arm more than 180 degrees, says Habib. “So if a person can extend their elbows at a greater angle, it just means their bone structure is a little different.”

In 2004, a study was conducted in the UK that included adult female twins. It was supposed to confirm earlier assumptions that joint hypermobility is genetically determined. It turned out that in pairs of identical twins, both sisters more often had hypermobility of the joints than in pairs of fraternal twins. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, researchers found that joint hypermobility tends to run in families.

Researchers also found that joint hypermobility decreases as people age. Children tend to be more flexible than their parents and grandparents. Women tend to have more flexible joints than men, although this may be due to the fact that men tend to be larger. There is also evidence that people of African, Asian and Middle Eastern descent tend to be more hypermobile than those of European descent.

Most superflexible people don't find these traits harmful. However, some may be diagnosed with one of the symptoms of the so-called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which can be quite painful. Dr. Michael Simpson wrote in an article published in the Journal American Association osteopathy" that symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome have from 4 to 13% of people, this is usually observed in thumbs, little fingers, elbows, knees and spine.

Dancer's dilemma

There is a group of people with joint hypermobility that are more likely than others to become scientific research, are dancers. Joint hypermobility, even in its mildest form, is often associated with a lack of stability. "If a joint is really flexible, it won't be very stable, and you'll end up having to use more of your muscle strength to stabilize it," Habib says.

Because of this, people with increased joint mobility end up having to use their energy to maintain balance rather than doing the things they want to do, such as lifting weights (in the case of elbows) or even just standing up straight (in the case of elbows). case with knees and back).

In a report published in 2012, physiotherapist Mark Scheper from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences explicitly questioned whether hypermobility was "a sign of talent or vulnerability" for professional dancers. "From an aesthetic point of view, joint hypermobility is often presented - and indeed seen - as part of professional dance training," he writes, but it can leave such dancers more susceptible to pain and fatigue than their less able-bodied counterparts. flexible joints. In this regard, the dancer may develop psychological symptoms depression and anxiety.

For their research, Scheper and his colleagues recruited dancers from the Amsterdam Academy of Arts School and compared them with girls from the nearby Amsterdam medical school. The scientist found that, in general, joint hypermobility is usually accompanied by "less muscle strength, decreased maximum exercise capacity, and less ability to walk distances." This pattern was observed in patients from both schools. However, joint hypermobility was much more common among dancers than among doctors.

Test of endurance

Dancers with joint hypermobility were more likely to report extreme fatigue than female medical students with the same symptoms. The researchers suspect that this may reflect the fact that dance education is generally more demanding, but it also suggests that even with all their training, the dancers are less physically prepared than the girls in medical school. In addition, dancing on professional level require not only flexibility, but also greater control and high precision of movements. Thus, those with more flexible joints may become more tired while achieving precision movements.

All the dancers were more tired than the medical workers, but the dancers with joint hypermobility were the most tired. “It is possible,” writes Scheper, “that such dancers have to expend more effort to meet the demands of professional dance training, but they also have to expend more effort to maintain the level of their skills.”

In light of their research, Scheeper and his colleagues suggested that joint hypermobility may be more of a disadvantage than an advantage for professional dancers.

However, we should avoid generalizations, say British rheumatologists Howard Bird and Elaine Foley. With their advanced knowledge and understanding of anatomy, Bird and Foley point out that the art of dance is not monolithic.

“The demands placed on ballet dancers are different from those faced by modern dance performers,” they write. Indeed, even if we talk only about modern dance, the styles and techniques of outstanding choreographers such as the late Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham are strikingly different from each other.

Indeed, assessing the impact of superflexibility on dance requires more in-depth research than the modest study of joints.

There are people whose thumbs move in a very special way. Perhaps you also have a friend who has repeatedly surprised you with the fact that his thumb can bend 90 degrees in the direction opposite to his palm. What is the reason for this “Focus”? It's simple - he has a hitchhiker's thumb! Let's figure out what it is...

Hitchhiker's finger is popularly known as distal hypermobility of the thumb. It is known that the joint of the fingertip is called distal. For most people, it serves to straighten and bend forward (towards the palm) the thumb. But the hitchhiker's thumb allows the distal joint to bend towards the back of the hand at an angle of 90 degrees!

To understand why this happens, we need knowledge from the field of genetics. It turns out that there is a special gene that determines the mobility of the thumbs. By the way, it’s called the “Thumb Flexion gene.”

There are several alleles for the thumb flexion gene. Alleles are variations within the same gene. For example, one allele makes your thumbs perfectly straight. Another allele allows the thumbs to bend 90 degrees both backwards and forwards….

All genetic traits are divided into dominant and recessive. A straight thumb is a dominant trait, so people with straight thumbs make up the vast majority. Hitchhiker's thumb is a recessive trait. For a person to exhibit this feature, he must receive the recessive allele “thumb flexion gene” from both parents.

In other words, hitchhiker's toe means that two recessive genes responsible for bending your thumb have been combined in your genetic code. Naturally, this happens very rarely! Not many people can boast that they have seen with their own eyes a thumb that can bend back ninety degrees. So, if you have such a feature, you can safely consider yourself a unique person!

In general, there may be several reasons why people even learn to swim. Today we will touch on some of them before answering the question of how you can learn to float on the water, and then improve your health.

Why do people want to learn to swim?

• It's fun. Indeed, visiting a pool or swimming in a river or sea is fun. In many ways, it is the desire to have fun that is the incentive for children and adults to learn to swim;
• Sports interest. It’s probably no secret that playing sports on the water is good way keep yourself in shape. Various exercises are designed to help you develop your body and keep it in good shape;
• A desire to help others and a sense of responsibility. Many parents understand that in order to rescue their children from the water if necessary, they need to be able to swim;
• The instinct of self-preservation. IN dangerous situation Swimming ability may be required.

There are people whose thumbs move in a very special way. Perhaps you also have a friend who has repeatedly surprised you with the fact that his thumb can bend 90 degrees in the direction opposite to his palm. What is the reason for this “focus”? It's simple - he has a Hitchhiker's thumb! Let's figure out what it is...
Hitchhiker's finger is popularly known as distal hypermobility of the thumb. It is known that the joint of the fingertip is called distal. For most people, it serves to straighten and bend forward (towards the palm) the thumb. But the Hitchhiker's thumb allows the distal joint to bend towards the back of the hand at an angle of 90 degrees!
A person with such a finger can bend it not only forward, but also in the opposite direction! From the outside it looks very unusual! Sometimes there are other variations of the hypermobile finger. Thus, some people can bend their thumbs backwards, but are limited in their forward movements. Others can move their thumbs equally in all directions.
To understand why this happens, we need knowledge from the field of genetics. It turns out that there is a special gene that determines the mobility of the thumbs. By the way, it’s called the “thumb flexion gene.”
There are several alleles for the thumb flexion gene. Alleles are variations within the same gene. For example, one allele makes your thumbs perfectly straight. Another allele allows the thumbs to bend 90 degrees both backwards and forwards...
It is known that we inherit all genes from our parents. Thus, each of us has two genes (one from mom and one from dad) that determine the possibility of bending the thumb. Therefore, your thumbs will bend depending on which alleles you received from your parents.
All genetic traits are divided into dominant and recessive. A straight thumb is a dominant trait, so people with straight thumbs make up the vast majority. Hitchhiker's thumb is a recessive trait. For a person to exhibit this feature, he must receive the recessive allele “thumb flexion gene” from both parents.
In other words, the Hitchhiker's finger means that two recessive genes responsible for bending the thumb have been combined in your genetic code. Naturally, this happens very rarely! Not many people can boast that they have seen with their own eyes a thumb that can bend back ninety degrees. So, if you have such a feature, you can safely consider yourself a unique person!

The fingers bend in the opposite direction. 10 signs that you may have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome

1. Your joints are overly flexible (hypermobile), for example, you can bend your little finger back 90 degrees, you can easily reach the floor with your hands when bending over, your knees and elbows bend in the opposite direction. This may not be the case, especially if you are over 20, but you are still quite flexible and awkward.
2. Your skin is soft, velvety to the touch, and can be pulled back quite easily, for example, on the outer surface of your arms (more than 1.5 cm).
3. You have chronic pain in the joints/ligaments/tendons/You yourself don’t understand where, but the doctors shrug their shoulders.
4. You have had dislocations or subluxations of joints, perhaps they recur regularly.
5. It torments you chronic fatigue, pulse surges, and doctors diagnose you with vegetative-vascular dystonia.
6. You have crowded and crooked teeth, a high palate, and your teeth are very susceptible to caries.
7. You regularly get bruises, although you don’t seem to have hit yourself.
8. Any injury takes longer to heal for you than for others, and more often causes complications.
9. Your main problems began after 20 years.
10. You have a specific set of symptoms (perhaps not all): scoliosis, kyphosis, flat feet, spinal problems, hernias, ptosis, stretch marks, wide scars, thin skin and veins visible through it, bluish sclera of the eyes, myopia, varicose veins. You are generally a sick person, you have a weakened immune system and a large “bouquet” of diseases.

The fingers bend in the opposite direction. Stiff thumb

An inflexible thumb does not bend in the opposite direction at the joints of the phalanges of will and logic. The owner of such a thumb is a hardworking person, he is honest and uncompromising. Parallel lines of the mind and heart indicate strong will and perseverance. Such a person dominates his wife and children. The children of such a person are also uncompromising, and it is difficult for the wife to maintain health. If the thumb is short and thick, a person always takes revenge for insults.

Just give your thumbs up. See if your finger is straight or curved. It turns out that the shape of your finger can tell you something about your personality.

Straight thumb

Some people have a straight finger when they lift it up, like in the picture. They can't bend it. A straight thumb can mean that you are a very serious person. Although you show your emotional condition, this does not mean that you are a boring person. A straight finger indicates the assertiveness and strong character of its owner. Often these are leaders who are always ready to take on greater responsibility.

Crooked thumb

Another group of people have a curved thumb, as you can see in the photo. This angle can be smaller or larger depending on the person.

Obtuse angle

People whose thumb makes an obtuse angle with their index finger are very rare. These thumbs are usually very strong, long and thin. People who have such thumbs are very calm and thoughtful. They are usually excellent artists and musicians.

The first half of the thumb is larger than the second.

If the first half of your thumb is longer than the second, you make all your decisions based on logic. You don't believe in willpower. However, this logic holds you back from love. You tend to be always on guard and you are afraid of falling in love. This is why you're missing out on so many great opportunities to find ideal partner through life.

Try to fix this. If you truly want to find love, you must start listening to your heart and putting logic to the background.

A disease where the fingers bend. Why don't my fingers bend?

So, why don’t the fingers bend when trying to do this, and why does it occur? unpleasant feeling? First of all, you should pay attention to the condition of the interphalangeal joints. Examine them to see if there are signs of tissue deformation, swelling or redness. If all these signs are absent, then you can safely rule out deforming osteoarthritis, arthritis and gout. You should approach the diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis with caution. With this pathology connective tissue The main lesions are located in intervertebral joints, and only isolated consequences can occur on the hands. Rheumatism and other systemic diseases. Their diagnosis requires careful laboratory tests.

Most often, the answer to the question of why the fingers do not bend lies in the plane of the lesion nerve fiber, which is responsible for the innervation of the corresponding muscle adductor fibers. Any movement of our body is induced by signal transmission from the brain. Then nerve impulse forms a command to the corresponding muscle group to contract or relax. If there is difficulty in straightening or bending your fingers, then most likely such a nerve impulse simply does not reach the muscles. Hearth pathological changes in this case it can be located both in cervical spine spinal column and form against the background of long-term osteochondrosis, and in the carpal tunnel.

As a rule, these conditions are accompanied by a feeling of crawling, numbness, slight pain syndrome And increased fatigue muscle fibers. At long-term violation During the innervation process, the muscles are deformed and their dystrophy occurs.

frequent pathologies of the musculoskeletal system. About 15% of patients in orthopedic and trauma hospitals end up there precisely because of problems with their knees. Let's look at what types of knee joint diseases there are.

If left untreated, some knee injuries and diseases can lead to decreased ability to work and even disability. If you are bothered by pain or other unpleasant symptoms– go to the doctor immediately! Timely medical assistance will help you avoid serious consequences.

Classification of diseases

Doctors are shocked: “Effective and accessible remedy for joint pain there is..."...

Depending on the causes of occurrence, all diseases knee joints can be divided into several large groups. Each of them is characterized by its own development mechanism and symptoms.

Types of knee joint diseases:

• inflammatory. Characterized by the development of infectious or aseptic inflammation of various structures of the knee joint. Can occur at any age. The causes of the pathology are infection in the joint or the presence of an inflammatory process in the body. It can be either acute or chronic. Inflammatory processes can also develop against the background of a long course;
• degenerative-dystrophic. More common in older people and people who constantly perform heavy work. physical work. Degenerative processes are a consequence of the aging of the body, which is accompanied by a slowdown in metabolism and blood circulation in the joints. Under the influence of provoking factors (physical exercise, lack of calcium, metabolic disorders) articular cartilage begin to deteriorate, which leads to the development of pathology. Degenerative-dystrophic diseases have a chronic, slowly progressive course;
• traumatic. Occur immediately after injury or later, more long term. The cause may be a fall, a blow to the knee, or compression of the leg with a heavy object. Traumatic diseases can lead to impaired functioning of the knee joints, difficulty walking and even disability. Their timely treatment helps to avoid unwanted consequences;
• tumor. Neoplasms in the knee area can be benign or malignant. The first include osteoma and, which respond well to treatment. The second ones include multiple myeloma, chondrosarcoma, osteogenic sarcoma. Like any malignant tumors they are difficult to treat. They rarely develop.

Why can some people move their ears? ENDOGYMNASTICS or the benefits of the ability to move your ears

Almost every one of us can remember from school childhood a classmate who had the rare ability to move his ears, in anatomy lessons, teachers popularly explained this ability by the presence of rudimentary muscles in the owner of such a skill, which other people either lack or do not work, but in any case they do not have any practical significance for life.

However, apart from the rudimentary, and supposedly useless, a large number of muscle groups human bodies are practically quite weakly involved in Everyday life, which largely results from age-related changes forms, as well as deterioration of general condition and well-being with age.

For example, it turns out that the appearance of a double chin is, among other things, due to a decrease in the volume of the skull due to age-related weakening of the muscles located on the skull.

According to the results special research, skinny people, unlike complete ones, in addition to differences in nutrition, they make hundreds of additional movements per day, absolutely mechanically and imperceptibly for themselves and others, which also supports more accelerated metabolism and burning of calories received from food.

Let's try to combine these above facts and draw some useful conclusions for our daily behavior in order to maintain or improve our own well-being and physical fitness.

Dozens, and maybe more, of all kinds of systems and complexes have already been developed and exist physical exercise, thanks to which you can achieve high level physical fitness, from ordinary complexes such as morning exercises, all kinds of fitness, aerobics, rocking, jogging, etc. And they all require:

A) desire to engage in them, incl. the problem of deciding on the type of activity

B) already having a certain level of physical fitness and medical control in progress

C) time for classes and putting yourself in order after classes.

D) places for training, these are stadiums, tracks, sports equipment, halls, rocking chairs, etc.

D) Money to pay for subscriptions, sports uniforms, etc.

Those. It turns out that only a minority of the adult population is actively and purposefully engaged in real work due to the impossibility of finding a joint solution to the problems described above.

The set of exercises described below requires in practice only one of the conditions, namely desire, everything else is not required.

ENDOGYMNASTICS - a set of exercises that includes repeated contraction and relaxation of muscle groups human body from the tips of the toes to the tips of the fingers and the top of the head. The main difference between this complex and the already known ones is that 99% of the movements of all muscle groups are performed inside your body, without moving it and its parts (arms, legs, head). At the exit there is a slight shaking from the outside, completely unnoticeable to others. Thanks to this feature, this set of exercises can be easily performed absolutely anywhere, for example, on the way to work and from work to public transport, on foot, waiting for the elevator, in the elevator, at the workplace, etc.

Toes and arch of the foot (squeeze-relax), thighs-buttocks (squeeze-relax), abdominal muscles, chest, throat area, face (eyes), scalp, create a wave from bottom to top, fingers squeeze-relax, biceps-triceps strain -relax everything 100-120 times, then change the grip of the hands (by the handrail if standing), with one hand we alternately squeeze the fingers of the other (sitting)

For example, while traveling to (from work) on a bus for 30-40 minutes, it is quite possible to carry out about one and a half thousand contraction-relaxation cycles various groups body muscles, both together and in turn, with to varying degrees intensity and consistency, while the maximum consequence that will happen is light perspiration. At the same time, completely natural body movements associated with the movement of the bus more than cover the movements from the set of exercises. The main thing is to take a stable position, whether sitting or standing, it’s just that it will be more convenient to exercise in each position different groups muscles. Breathing is arbitrary, shallow.

While walking, you can put it into operation on a flat and safe section of the path. additional groups muscles, walk as if with great effort (load on the legs), also raise the wave from bottom to top (stomach-chest-head), clench and unclench your fingers, strain and relax your biceps, triceps. Of course, the opportunity to do all this while walking will not appear immediately, but there is nothing particularly difficult about it (it’s most convenient if you wear a backpack).

You can include elements of the so-called. static strength exercises, in the process you will begin to discover new possibilities.

As a result, after a year or two, excellent overall tone appears, well-being improves, and general metabolism, ailments caused by in a sedentary manner life and work (especially for those who have to spend a long time at the computer).

The main problem is to learn how to include these muscle groups in work; not everyone will succeed in this and will not succeed right away. I think that within about a year it will be possible to develop and include a maximum of these groups, and after a year or two of targeted training, it turns out that you can significantly To supplement the range of physical exercises with others that you have been doing for a long time and abandoned, you will have both the time and desire to do it, and within a couple of months you will cover all your previous records with unexpected ease. How it happened for me.

I once did jogging and strength exercises, but given my medical history, as a result, my health did not improve, but worsened, and in order not to go to extremes, I had to stop exercising.

After a couple of years of practicing the exercises described above general state significantly improved in all respects, weight decreased by 4 kg on average, although in general there was not much excess.

The strength exercises that I now do in addition to ENDOGYMNASTICS are naturally woven into life,

this is 1-2 approaches to the crossbar, parallel bars, passing by the school next to the house on the way to work-from-work, according to your well-being and desire, push-ups from the floor 1-2 sets per day whenever possible.

So the result is good physical fitness and well-being while specifically spending time (zero) and specifically spending money (zero).

In any case, whether you do anything else or not, ENDOGYMNASTICS will be a good basic help for your healthy life.

You may ask, can I move my ears? Unfortunately, no, otherwise there would be another muscle group for exercise.

There are no people in nature whose joints actually bend in both directions, although some of us do have very elastic joints. And this property can lead to very unexpected effects, says the BBC Future correspondent.

No doubt you know someone (or, more likely, you knew as a child) who boasted that their joints bent in both directions. To prove this, these braggarts would bend their thumb in the opposite direction so that it could touch their wrist. However, despite all their boasting, these schoolyard performance artists are not actually medical phenomena. At least people can't have joints that bend in both directions. But what about these braggarts, whose bodies and limbs are capable of wobbling in the most incredible way, as if on hinges? They are simply incredibly flexible.

Doctors and scientists call this joint hypermobility or joint elasticity. It just means that some people can bend their joints more than others. Most of us can bend our thumb a few degrees, but some can bend it at a greater angle. We can all bend at the waist, but for some individuals, their lumbosacral joints allow them to lean back and place both hands on the floor. Each of us can spread our legs wide apart, but only some of us have such mobility in the hip joint that it allows them to do the splits.

And in order to talk about joint hypermobility, such flexibility must be innate, and not acquired as a result of training or stretching. Some athletes and dancers, for example, can eventually train their bodies to become more and more flexible, but the joint hypermobility that is affecting us right now is innate.

In order to understand why a joint can be more or less flexible, a brief lesson in human anatomy is required. There are two factors that limit joint mobility: the shape of the bones and the cartilage, or ligaments. Michael Habib, an anatomist and vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Southern California, says: "You may have difficulty exercising - this could be because something is pushing against something - or you may have a ligament which will keep everything in its place.”
Hooks and grooves

If a person can bend their thumb all the way to their wrist, it is usually because their ligaments allow them to do so. “If you are born with weak ligaments, they will be more flexible,” says Habib.

On the other hand, some of those individuals whose joints seem to bend in both directions owe their flexibility to the structure of their own bones. A typical case of hypermobility occurs in the elbow joints. Some people are able to bend their elbow joint in the “wrong” direction, creating an angle greater than 180 degrees.

There is a process of bone that forms the sharp part of the shoulder, it is called the olecranon or olecranon. “It has a small hook, but it’s actually quite a big hook,” explains Habib. This hook is located in a small groove located on the back of the humerus; This is the upper bone of the arm - the humerus or humerus. And when you straighten your arm, the hook slides and falls into this little groove. When the hook hits the end of the groove, you can't bend your arm any further.

“If your olecranon is small or if the groove is deep, you may be able to extend your arm more than 180 degrees,” says Habib. “So if a person can extend their elbows at a greater angle, it just means their bone structure is a little different.”

In 2004, a study was conducted in the UK that included adult female twins. It was supposed to confirm earlier assumptions that joint hypermobility is genetically determined. It turned out that in pairs of identical twins, both sisters more often had hypermobility of the joints than in pairs of fraternal twins. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, researchers found that joint hypermobility tends to run in families.

Researchers also found that joint hypermobility decreases as people age. Children tend to be more flexible than their parents and grandparents. Women tend to have more flexible joints than men, although this may be due to the fact that men tend to be larger. There is also evidence that people of African, Asian and Middle Eastern descent tend to be more hypermobile than those of European descent.

Most superflexible people don't find these traits harmful. However, some may be diagnosed with one of the symptoms of the so-called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which can be quite painful. Dr. Michael Simpson wrote in an article published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association that 4% to 13% of people have symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, usually occurring in the thumbs, little fingers, elbows, knees and spine.

Dancer's dilemma

There is a group of people with joint hypermobility that is most often the subject of scientific research: dancers. Joint hypermobility, even in its mildest form, is often associated with a lack of stability. “If a joint is really flexible, it won't be very stable, and you'll end up having to use more of your muscle strength to stabilize it,” says Habib.

Because of this, people with increased joint mobility end up having to use their energy to maintain balance instead of doing the things they want to do, such as lifting weights (in the case of elbows) or even just standing up straight (in the case of elbows). case with knees and back).

In a report published in 2012, physiotherapist Mark Scheper of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences explicitly questioned whether hypermobility was “a sign of talent or vulnerability” for professional dancers. “From an aesthetic point of view, joint hypermobility is often presented—and looks—as part of professional dance training,” he writes, but it can leave such dancers more susceptible to pain and fatigue than their less-impaired counterparts. flexible joints. As a result, the dancer may develop psychological symptoms of depression and anxiety.

For their research, Scheper and his colleagues recruited dancers from the Amsterdam Academy of Arts School and compared them with girls from the nearby Amsterdam Medical School. The scientist found that, in general, joint hypermobility is usually accompanied by “less muscle strength, decreased maximal exercise capacity, and less ability to cover distances on foot.” This pattern was observed in patients from both schools. However, joint hypermobility was much more common among dancers than among doctors.

Test of endurance

Dancers with joint hypermobility were more likely to report extreme fatigue than female medical students with the same symptoms. The researchers suspect that this may reflect the fact that dance education is generally more demanding, but it also suggests that even with all their training, the dancers are less physically prepared than the girls in medical school. In addition, dancing at a professional level requires not only flexibility, but also greater control and high precision of movements. Thus, those with more flexible joints may become more tired while achieving precision movements.

All the dancers were more tired than the medical workers, but the dancers with joint hypermobility were the most tired. “It is possible,” writes Scheper, “that such dancers have to expend more effort to meet the demands of professional dance training, but they also have to expend more effort to maintain their skill level.”

In light of their research, Scheeper and his colleagues suggested that joint hypermobility may be more of a disadvantage than an advantage for professional dancers.

However, we should avoid generalizations, say British rheumatologists Howard Bird and Elaine Foley. With their advanced knowledge and understanding of anatomy, Bird and Foley point out that the art of dance is not monolithic.

“The demands placed on ballet dancers are different from those faced by modern dance performers,” they write. Indeed, even if we talk only about modern dance, the styles and techniques of outstanding choreographers such as the late Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham are strikingly different from each other.

Indeed, assessing the impact of superflexibility on dance requires more in-depth research than the modest study of joints.

Discomfort in the fingers is quite common in older people. Sometimes the fingers do not straighten in young patients.

Pathology, when the finger is poorly straightened, complicates life, if there is pain It’s difficult to pick up even a light object.

To eliminate the provoking factor, it is worth understanding the options when the finger on the hand does not straighten and the changes in the body that caused the disease.

There may be several reasons that caused a situation where a finger on the hand is difficult to straighten, or does not straighten at all. Most often, the provoking factor is injury.

Dislocation occurs during a fall, muscle contraction, sharp blow or spasm. More often this is noticeable when the finger does not fully extend - see photo below.

The pathology is distinguished by the following symptoms:

• strong pain;
• change in joint shape;
• swelling, change in skin color in the injured area;
• lack or deterioration of mobility.

Another common cause is syndrome vibration disease . Progresses slowly, has several stages. Representatives of professions associated with vibration are exposed to it (stone cutters, drillers, drivers, asphalt pavers, etc.).

Other factors that make it impossible to straighten a finger:

1. Fracture. If the treatment was incorrect, the limbs lose mobility, and the grasping function of the hand worsens. More often subject to fractures forefinger in the area of ​​the nail, after which it stops straightening. Treatment is conservative while maintaining the integrity of the articular part. A plaster cast is applied, and a splint is applied to the adjacent joint. In order to maintain the mobility of the limb and hand, after removing the cast, it is necessary to develop the arm well with the help of massage, physiotherapeutic procedures, and gymnastics.
2. Arthritis. One of the symptoms of a disease in which the joints become inflamed is deterioration in the mobility of the limbs, for example, the fingers on the hand are difficult to straighten. The disease is considered additional, occurring against the background of another illness. To maintain mobility and prevent transition to a difficult stage, it is necessary to select the right medications, treatment methods. Arthritis is distinguished by the presence the following symptoms: crunching when moving, increased pain when the weather changes, inflammation of the joints, weakness of the hand.
3. Stenosing ligamentitis. Pathology involves locking a limb in one position. The main manifestation of the disease is the inability to move the affected joint. A combination with other diseases is often observed: arthrosis, epicondylitis.
4. Osteoarthritis. The disease proceeds unnoticed, and as it progresses, an increase in the number of symptoms is observed. At first, there is a slight discomfort in the joint part, which sometimes disappears. The development of the disease presupposes the presence of the following symptoms: the joint changes shape, a crunching sensation is felt with any movement, it becomes painful to bend a finger, and the amplitude of movements decreases. Often the disease develops on several limbs without affecting the rest.
5. Dupuytren's countertrace. The disease affects the flexor tendons. The palm becomes more and more rigid and dense, the limbs begin to bend. The lesion often spreads to several fingers, but it is possible to spread to the entire hand. The disease proceeds smoothly, the ability to move the joints over a limited amplitude is preserved, causing minor inconvenience to the patient. Sometimes development occurs rapidly, one or more fingers quickly bend towards the palm. The first stages of pathology development include treatment with physiological procedures, special exercises, installing splints at night. With sufficient progression, the disease is eliminated by surgical intervention by removing tissue. Treatment may not be possible, then the damaged part is removed.
   
6. Pinching nerve endings . The finger stops moving and it is impossible to bend it. If you help with bending with the other hand, no pain occurs.

Others are possible diseases in which the finger on the hand cannot be straightened: gout, Raynaud's syndrome, tenosynovitis, etc.

The inflexibility of the fingers in the photo is the consequences of a dislocation.

By additional symptoms stiffness of the finger on the hand, one can draw primary conclusions about the type of pathology.

Injury – rupture of the extensor ligament of the phalanx.

Diagnostics

At severe pain when the phalanx of the finger does not extend, it is necessary medical assistance. There are many reasons for changes in mobility, so You should first see a therapist. The doctor conducts an examination and may refer you to the following highly specialized specialists:

• rheumatologist, which considers diseases associated with connective tissues;
• neurologist, with pinched nerves;
• surgeon, if you suspect the need for amputation or surgical treatment.

The specialist will determine the nature of the pathology and refer you to additional research:

• Ultrasound to determine changes in joints;
• x-ray, in which a picture is taken in three projections;
• CT, capable of showing any changes in the tissues surrounding the diseased joint;
• MRI, is the most accurate diagnostic tool that uses electromagnetic waves;
• electrospondylography, allowing you to identify problems in the functioning of your finger. A study of the part of the spine responsible for the functioning of the upper limbs is carried out;
• intra-articular puncture. It is carried out when it is necessary to apply medicine to a diseased area, or to remove accumulated fluid;
• skin biopsy– used to identify certain diseases.

In addition to the listed studies, if the thumb does not straighten, a blood and urine test is prescribed. After receiving the test results, the patient is treated by taking medications, applying procedures and other methods.

Treatment when a finger cannot straighten

After applying for medical care, when the thumb does not straighten I, it is worth considering that If it is impossible to straighten the fingers, complex therapy is used for treatment.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are often used to relieve pain: Ibuprofen, Indomethacin, Otrofen, Diclogen and others.

For complex inflammations, corticosteroid substances are used: Diprospana, Prednisolone, etc. If required, the doctor administers novocaine.