Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies (For Dummies) - Donna Rae Siegfried

...course I have to do anatomy and physiology. Both aspects are quite hard so I thought I would buy this book to help with some of the concepts. This book is obviously not written specifically for SLT students so some of the information is not necessary to me but some parts are and I do like this book.

The For Dummies series offer a range of books as "A reference for the Rest of Us!" written in clear English so that anyone ...
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Before the main anatomy and physiology text starts there is a page telling the reader about the For Dummies series. Next, there is information about the author, Donna Rae Siegfried, who has written about medical and pharmaceutical topics for fifteen years.

After the dedication and author's acknowledgements, there is a contents at a glance page, which details the five sections of the books and the titles of the chapters. There ... more

As part of my Speech and Language Sciences course I have to do anatomy and physiology. Both aspects are quite hard so I thought I would buy this book to help with some of the concepts. This book is obviously not written specifically for SLT students so some of the information is not necessary to me but some parts are and I do like this book.

The For Dummies series offer a range of books as "A reference for the Rest of Us!" written in clear English so that anyone can read them and gain knowledge about their chosen subject.

The book is paperback and is 360 pages long. The cover is black and yellow (like all the For Dummies range) with an image of part of a human body, illustrating the muscles. The first page of the book is perforated, as it is a cheat sheet. This page is double sided and has some basic concepts that you should understand before reading, and while reading, the book. These include the anatomic position, anatomic terms (such as anterior or cranial), planes of the body (e.g. sagittal or coronal), organ systems of the body (e.g. circulatory, digestive) and cavities of the body (such as dorsal or ventral). I have not pulled this sheet out in case I lose it but I do refer to it sometimes.

Before the main anatomy and physiology text starts there is a page telling the reader about the For Dummies series. Next, there is information about the author, Donna Rae Siegfried, who has written about medical and pharmaceutical topics for fifteen years.

After the dedication and author's acknowledgements, there is a contents at a glance page, which details the five sections of the books and the titles of the chapters. There is a page, which shows five cartoons and the page numbers on which they appear (at the beginning of each of the five sections) with contact details for the cartoonist. Next is the table of contents, which spans four pages and details the information found within each chapter. I think this is quite useful but I find it sometimes quicker and easier just to refer to the index rather than read all through the list of contents.

*Anatomy is the study of the structure of the body and physiology is the study of the functions*

~The Introduction~

This section talks through the format of the book and gives details on each of the five sections. There are icons in the book for quick reference and these are explained in the introduction as well.

The author says that she is assuming that the reader is one of three people:

·A high school student preparing for a college entrance exam
·A student trying to make sense of the material learned throughout an anatomy and physiology course (that's me!)
·An adult learner taking or thinking about taking an anatomy and physiology course.

She does go on to say that perhaps you are none of these and just want to learn about how your body works. She says that whatever the reason you are reading the book she has done her best to explain the topics simply and effectively.

~ Part I Positioning Yourself to Study Anatomy ~

At the beginning of the section there is a box summarising what the chapters in the section go through. At the beginning of each chapter there is a list detailing what is in the chapter.

Part I has three chapters: Parts of the Whole, Spanning the Ages: What Your Body Does Throughout Its Life, and Forming Your Foundation.

These chapters detail the types of anatomy there are (using an example of Ann Atomy and her relatives), including developmental, gross and histologic anatomy. There are outline diagrams some parts of the body. These are simple but effective. There is a table detailing the Latin roots for common anatomical terms. There is information about genes and DNA and how it is made.

For example: Latin root: Cardi-, Meaning: Heart, Example: Cardiac arrest (stoppage of the heart)

There are more tables summarising other important information. I think these are good at it easy to see the information that is needed.

Each subheading is in bold and in a bigger font so it easy to see. The headings are all simple such as "Building Blocks that Build you" for a section on DNA and protein synthesis.

Chapter three covers the processes such as diffusion, osmosis and filtration. These are all explained in simple terms and are easy to understand. As I have learned about such processes at A-level these are just nice as a recap.

~ Part II Anatomy from Head to Toe ~

The layout is almost identical to the previous section (and the whole book), and this part also has three chapters. This time the chapters cover the skeletal system, muscles and skin. This section is more relevant to my course as this is where the skull comes in. There are lists of bones from the skull, with the bone name in bold and then a description of where that bone is, for example, Mandible - The lower jaw and only moveable bone of the skull.

There are grey boxes with extra information in such as, What is a Cleft Palate? Or Why women have bigger hips than men.

There are more diagrams in this section too, all of which link to the text. These are all in black and white (I would prefer colour, but hey I can't have everything! lol) and help to visualise what I've been reading about. There are two diagrams of the facial muscles one from the side and one from the front, with the same labels on. This helps to picture where they are.

~ Part III Focusing on Physiology ~

Most of the previous two sections have been about the anatomy of the body, so this section is the first main section on physiology. This is a larger section, covering seven chapters. These chapters cover seven systems of the body, the nervous, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, urinary and immune systems.

Each chapter covers each system in a good level of detail and also linking how important the system is. For example, the chapter on the nervous system states how you couldn't do much without this system, you couldn't tie your shoe, know you are cold or touched something hot and you wouldn't be able the read the book! There are once again lots of diagrams, and the text is broken into sections with interesting sub headings.

In the middle of this section there are 8 pages of coloured diagrams, relating to all the sections in the book. These pages are thicker than the pages in the rest of the book. All of the diagrams are in colour and are labelled. The diagrams of the developing embryo have a scale at the bottom of the page. I really like these diagrams, as they are clear and concise and link really well to the text in the book. I personally don't need all of the diagrams for my studies but the ones I do need are really useful. They all look really good and make the book more interesting.

~ Part IV Creating New Bodies ~

This section only has two chapters and they are about reproduction, birth and development. This section has outline diagrams of the reproductive organs and the developing embryo inside the mother.

This section also talks about, cancer, infertility and details each of three trimesters of the pregnancy. It also talks about infancy, childhood and puberty.

I do not need this section for my course but it looks like it offers a lot of detail surrounding, reproduction, pregnancy and birth.

~ Part V The Part of Tens ~

This section has 10 ways to keep your body healthy and ten great anatomy and physiology websites.

The ten ways to keep your body healthy are really interesting reading although lots of them are quite obvious such as drink plenty water or get enough sleep.

I haven't checked out any of the websites yet but I think will. Each one has a paragraph of writing outlining what the website is about.

The index is very comprehensive and I have found it easy to find what I am looking for.

~ Summary ~

This book is really useful for some aspects of my anatomy and physiology. The areas that I don't need do look very useful and this book seems to be good for any anatomy and physiology courses. A lot of it would have been useful for when I was doing A-Level biology. Even though I personally don't need all the information, I find it easy to locate the information that I do need.

I like the diagrams; they are really helpful and put the information from the text into a picture. As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, and I find they really help me when I'm using the book. It is a shame that they are not in colour though.

The coloured diagrams in the middle of the book add something extra, and make the book more interesting. When I am revising a section, I look in the middle to see if there is a coloured diagram on that section to help me reiterate the important points.

I like the idea of the cheat sheet, even though I haven't pulled it out. It is easy to find at the beginning of the book if I need to refer to it.

The explanations are simple and easy to read, so it's not too heavy. The sub-headings are interesting and the text has some humour in it. However, I do still find it a bit boring after a long session of revising from it.

The cartoons at the beginning of each section of the book are quite funny and add a bit more entertainment value.

~ What I like ~

·Diagrams
·Simple Text
·Good information
·Coloured diagrams in middle of book
·Cartoons
·Covers a lot of detail

~ What I dislike ~

·Diagrams in main book are not coloured
·I don't need all the information in the book

This book is really good and I would recommend it if you are doing any related course to anatomy and physiology. It may not include everything that you need but the information that is there is really useful and set out in an easy to use manner.

The end of the book has two pages detailing other books in the series, some of these include:

Accounting for Dummies
Diabetes for Dummies
Cats for Dummies
Chemistry for Dummies
Dating for Dummies
Dieting for Dummies
Windows XP for Dummies

The RRP of the book is £17.50 but is £11.38 on Amazon. On Amazon if you but it with the Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies workbook it's £20.47 in total, I bought them both as I though one would compliment the other (and they do :) There are currently used copies of this book on Amazon starting from £6.59. The Dummies books are also available on www.dummies.com

Thanks for reading; I'm off to use my Anatomy and Physiology For Dummies book as my exams are fast approaching! x 

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