---

•	Encyclopedia Home
•	Special Topics A-Z
•	Read Spanish version

Images

Skeleton

More Features

•	Printer-friendly version

Excessive carrying angle of the elbow

Alternative Names

Elbow carrying angle - excessive; Cubitus valgus

Information

When your arms are held out at your sides and your palms are facing forward, your forearm and hands should normally point about 5 to 15 degrees away from your body. This is the normal "carrying angle" of the elbow. This angle allows your forearms to clear your hips when you swing your arms, such as during walking or other activities. It is also important when carrying objects.

Certain fractures of the elbow can increase the carrying angle of the elbow, causing the arms to stick out too much from the body. This is called an excessive carrying angle.

Other fractures of the elbow can decrease the carrying angle of the elbow. If the angle is decreased, the arm points toward the body. This is known as a "gunstock deformity."

Because the carrying angle varies from person to person, it is important to compare one elbow with the other when evaluating a problem with the carrying angle.

References

Lazinski M, Lazinski M, Fedorczyk JM. Clinical examination of the elbow. In: Skirven TM, Osterman AL, Fedorczyk JM, Amadio PC, Feldscher SB, Shin EK, eds. Rehabilitation of the Hand and Upper Extremity. 7th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2021:chap 7.

Morrey BF. Functional evaluation of the elbow. In: Morrey BF, Sanchez-Sotelo J, Morrey ME, eds. Morrey's The Elbow and Its Disorders. 5th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2018:chap 5.

Perez EA. Fractures of the shoulder, arm, and forearm. In: Azar FM, Beaty JH, eds. Campbell's Operative Orthopaedics. 14th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2021:chap 57.

The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, or correctness of any translations made by a third-party service of the information provided herein into any other language.

© 1997- A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix, Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

All content on this site including text, images, graphics, audio, video, data, metadata, and compilations is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. You may view the content for personal, noncommercial use. Any other use requires prior written consent from Ebix. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, publish, reverse-engineer, adapt, modify, store beyond ordinary browser caching, index, mine, scrape, or create derivative works from this content. You may not use automated tools to access or extract content, including to create embeddings, vectors, datasets, or indexes for retrieval systems. Use of any content for training, fine-tuning, calibrating, testing, evaluating, or improving AI systems of any kind is prohibited without express written consent. This includes large language models, machine learning models, neural networks, generative systems, retrieval-augmented systems, and any software that ingests content to produce outputs. Any unauthorized use of the content including AI-related use is a violation of our rights and may result in legal action, damages, and statutory penalties to the fullest extent permitted by law. Ebix reserves the right to enforce its rights through legal, technological, and contractual measures.

© 1997- All rights reserved.