Fasciae of the Upper Limbs

00:01 In this next topic, let's talk about some superficial structures and the cutaneous innervation of the upper limb.

00:09 Let's start off with one of the most superficial of these where it's layers of fascia and we find that most superficially, just laying underneath the skin, we have a layer of what's known as superficial fascia and what this helps to do is it helps to really keep everything in position.

00:24 It helps to keep all the blood vessels, the venous drainage, the muscles in the right position so things aren't moving around too much.

00:32 Reflection extension of the upper limb and any part of the body.

00:36 These muscles and blood vessels are prone to movement and this superficial fascia can help to keep it in position, along with the layer of deep fascia which we'll come to at the moment.

00:47 So, let's have a look at the deep fascia and essentially, where we have an important muscle within the upper limb, we'll have a layer of fascia that surrounds it.

00:56 So, where we have biceps brachii, we have the brachial fascia.

00:59 We have a layer of fascia over the pectoralis muscles. A layer of fascia over the deltoid muscles.

01:04 A layer of fascia that is within the axilla helping to hold and contain numerous important blood vessels and neurostructures like the brachial plexus that pass through this space.

01:16 So, whatever the fascia helps to be contained within the upper limb and it helps to contain within it the various muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, etc.

01:25 that are located deep within it. Typically, we'd have these pieces around named muscles.

01:30 We can see the deltoid fascia but here, we can see the antebrachial fascia and that covers all of the forearm musculature.

01:37 What's important is the fascia doesn't just blend in all the time with the skin.

01:42 Sometimes, this deep fascia can actually go and attach to various bony points.

01:46 Here, we can see the epicondyles of the humerus and what this can end up doing is actually - is compartmentalizing various regions of the upper limb.

01:57 So, here, what we can see is the deep fascia that is surrounding part of the arm can actually help to separate the arm into what are known as anterior and posterior compartments.

02:09 So, here, we have the humerus and we can see surrounding the humerus, we have the brachial fascia.

02:15 So, we can see the brachial fascia is completely surrounding the arm.

02:20 We can see it's now separating the arm into an anterior compartment and a posterior compartment by that fascia being contiguous with these intermuscular septa that are going towards the humerus.

02:32 So, now, we can see, we have an anterior compartment that may well have its own nerve supply and we can also have a posterior compartment, separated by the humerus and these intermuscular septa.

02:44 This is all continuous as a sheet of connective tissue around the various layer of fascia.