July is Sarcoma Awareness Month, and the Sarcoma Foundation of America takes action on July 21st for Virtual Advocacy Day. This organization aims to advocate for individuals who have sarcoma and encourage more scientific research into patient care and treatment development.

Many individuals, particularly those living in Southern Nevada or the southwest US, experience extreme heat each summer. Regions of the US who are not as accustomed to high heat have also experienced extreme temperatures this year.

July is National Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month. During this time, we aim to raise awareness and help more people understand these conditions.

World Hepatitis Day falls on July 28, and the campaign’s focus is focusing on “finding the missing millions” of people who are living with hepatitis and unaware they are. There are 290 million people estimated worldwide who have been undiagnosed and therefore not receiving care who could lose their lives to this disease.

Eye health is sometimes an afterthought until something goes wrong. It can be difficult to know how healthy your eyes are without a comprehensive eye exam. While your eyes may feel perfectly healthy, problems could be occurring with no indication.

Therapeutic recreation has a long-standing history, starting in the 1850s as a profession years after Florence Nightingale had been actively using and suggesting more people try recreational therapy in their own practices. During World War II the Red Cross hired recreational therapists to care for wounded and traumatized soldiers.

Meditation comes in many forms, including drawing, coloring, and painting. It can be very calming for the mind to engage in the simple act of coloring. Use this activity to incorporate a simple meditation concerning your well-being.

If you find yourself unable to set time aside for self-care, it is time for a change! Self-care is important to help our brains find a place of calm and reduce stress in our bodies.

A simple gratitude practice can help shift your mind from focusing on the negative to focusing on the things you can be grateful for in life. This mindful practice is easy to do every day!

For this month’s Therapy Tune-Up, we are introducing a stress management challenge! It is easy to participate and easy to make progress.

Journaling is a simple yet effective tool for personal development and stress relief. The practice involves writing entries about personal experiences, thoughts, feelings, or ideas.

In addition to creating a fun and patriotic decoration for your home, this DIY wreath helps strengthen your coordination and motor planning skills. The actions in this craft also focus on bilateral integration, fine motor skills, and finger and hand strengthening.

Practicing this craft develops your fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and hand eye coordination as you add the color to the shirt.

Practicing water aerobics is a great way to get exercise at any age. Walking from side to side creates resistance and helps strengthen muscles and joints.

For adults, coloring is a creative activity that combines the calming power of the action of coloring with concepts and ideas from occupational therapy. This activity is designed to enhance mental cognition, improve fine motor skills, and support mental health.

It is so important to exercise parts of the brain that can grow weaker with age, particularly our memory. One fun way to strengthen your memory is to play this game!

Scavenger hunts are a great way to have some fun while being active at the same time. You can even do a scavenger hunt at home, and the whole family, young and old can join in on the fun.

Do you have a bullet journal? Many people use them to track different habits in their life while keeping themselves on track with their goals. There are so many different ways to use a habit tracker, including tracking self-care tasks, mental health activities, and workouts.

This summer is all about self-care! Self-care is something that can easily be put on the back burner for busy parents, caregivers, or professionals.

The Category Flipbook Game is a fun speech therapy activity that focuses on building vocabulary, word retrieval, and categorization skills.