Your JOINTs
There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton. Bones support the body and joints are the places
where two bones meet.

All bones, except for one (the hyoid bone in the neck), form a joint with another bone.

Most joints are designed to protect the ends of bones where they meet.

They also hold your bones together and they allow your rigid skeleton to move.

Bones are connected to other bones at many different types of joint. Some are fixed (such as in the skull) but most are moving joints.

Moving joints are described as 'synovial’ joints. They are characterised by the presence of a closed space, or cavity, between the bones.

Synovial joints include:

• Ball and socket joints, like your hip and shoulder joints
   
• Hinge joints, like those in your knee and elbow
   
• Ellipsoidal joints, such as the joint at the base of your index finger
   
• Gliding joints that occur between the surfaces of two flat bones held together by ligaments (some of the bones in your wrists and ankles move by gliding against each other)
   
• Pivot joint in your neck that allows you to turn your head from side to side
   
• Saddle joints, found only in your thumbs

Synovial joints are made up of bone, cartilage, tendons and ligaments and synovial fluid.