Integumentary System

This week our lesson was the integumentary system. As stated in the report Integumentary system is comprised of the skin; accessory composed of hair, nails and associated glands, protects an invasion of disease-protecting pathogens, helps keep body from drying out, produces vitamin D, and helps regulate body temperature.

Skin as we all know is the largest organ which covers area about 20.83 sq. ft. of an adult body.

There are 3 layers of the skin epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous fascia or hypodermis.

Epidermis is made up of five or six even smaller layers of stratified squamous epithelium. It is avascular – contains no blood vessels or nerve cells. It is the outermost layer of the skin which is dead cells – stratum corneum. Where do we get our skin colour? Melanocytes are specialized cells which are responsible for skin colour and produces melanin – actual substance that affects the skin colour. Carotene is another pigment which gives the yellowish hue to the skin.

Dermis is inferior to epidermis layer. It is sometimes called corium – thickest layer. It is a layer of dense, irregular, connective tissue. Dermis is considered as the true skin. It contains capillaries, collagenous and elastic fibres which helps movement, involuntary muscle, nerve endings, lymph vessels which transports fluid from tissue to the blood system, hair follicle, sebaceous glands (oil) which keep the skin form drying out, and sudoriferous glands (sweat) which has two types apocrine which can be found in groin region, anal region, and armpits and eccrine which is located all over the body.

Subcutaneous fascia is the innermost layer of the skin. It is composed of elastic and fibrous tissue, fatty tissue, and lipocytes. These are the ones attached to the muscle of the body.

There are 4 burns of the skin first up to fourth degree burn. When the damage is only the epidermis it is considered as first degree burn. If it involves the entire depth of epidermis and a portion of dermis it is said to be the second degree burn. Third degree burn affects all the 3 layers of the skin. When burn penetrates to the bone it is said to be fourth degree burn.

Nails are specialized epithelial cells originating from nail root. Nails are keratinized or hardened protein. Cuticle is a fold of tissue that covers the nail root. Nail body is the portion that we see. The pink colour of the skin is caused by the vascularisation of tissue under the nails. Lunula is the half moon shaped area.

Hair helps to regulate body temperature. It is composed of keratin-fibrous tissue. The hair that you can see is what we called shaft. Follicles are formed by epithelial cells which have rich source of blood. It also contains sebaceous glands which secrets sebum – oily substance that coast the follicle and works its way to the skin surface,

There are different common disorders of integumentary system. Lesion is a pathologically altered piece of tissue that includes a wound or injury or a single infected patch of skin. Some other disorders are Abrasion, Acne, Athlete’s foot, Bed sores, Boil, Cold sore, Eczema, Hires, Scabies and so many more.

This Report was ok. I learned well. I understand everything. My questions were answered correctly well, I’m happy about that. I wished there could be some other way to report other than having ppt. slides. What else could be? Hmmmm,  I don’t know how to report also. We didn’t have any activity regarding this topic. There was a test which I was the highest (chin up* raised eyebrows*)  our professor just gave us a review quiz which is I’m not sure if I passed. Well nice effort reporter.