Lower Limb Vascular System: Its Potential Risk Of Thrombosis In Air Travel
Pamela Gerrard, Clare Kelly, Lisa Molloy
Purpose
- To investigate the position and pathways of the vascular vessels in relation to the surrounding tissues and possible compression sites.
- To investigate anomalies or variations in our findings compared with current literature.
- To relate the findings to the ergonomics of air travel.
Functional Anatomy
The popliteal fossa is a diamond-shaped skin depression behind the knee joint. The upper part is bounded laterally by the tendon of biceps femoris and medially by the tendons of semitendinosus and semimembranosus. Inferiorly, it is bounded on each side by one of the heads of the gastrocnemius muscle (Snell 1992).
The popliteal vein, located at the medial side of the popliteal artery is formed by the venae comitantes of the tibial arteries within the popliteal fossa. It ascends through the fossa and crosses behind the popliteal artery to come to its lateral site. As it passes through the adductor magnus opening, it becomes the femoral vein. The tributaries include the small saphenous vein (Snell 1992).
