HESI West Coast University Practice Exam

Understanding directional terms in anatomy helps you describe where a structure sits relative to the body's center. Distal means farther from the trunk or origin, i.e., away from the center. For example, the fingers are distal to the wrist and the toes are distal to the ankles. The other terms refer to different ideas: equilibrium is balance, dysfunction is impaired or abnormal function, and diagnosis is the identification of a disease. So distal best matches the idea of distance from the center.