Health and Fitness

• Acting out: Psychodrama lets participants work through their troubles by re-enacting arguments, situations
  AT first, it could almost be confused with theater. The scenes played out are high drama -- conflicts between relatives, quarrels among friends, frustrations at work expressed in monologue. At times, it's almost absurdist. A discussion can be interrupted when the two actors suddenly reverse roles.

• Stretching yoga to a younger audience
  Could you get a class of a dozen kids to relax and just breathe for more than 15 minutes? It would be a stretch, right? For Sally Moona, that's exactly the point.

• Beaufort Memorial oncology nurse honored with DAISY Award
  As a nurse in Beaufort Memorial Hospital's oncology unit, Laura Hawkins has always done whatever she can to make her patients comfortable. But when a 31-year-old Marine, dying from esophageal cancer, confided he was afraid his young children would forget him, she was determined to do more.

• Conference focuses on primary care, cancer
  To improve the coordination of care for its cancer patients, Beaufort Memorial Hospital teamed up with Duke University Medical Center to host its first conference for primary care professionals.

• Area health center to investigate connection between asthma, blacks
  Janie Glover comes from a family of allergy sufferers. But about seven years ago, her allergies started triggering something worse. Turns out, she had developed asthma.

• Medical mission of service
  The original Volunteers in Medicine was founded on Hilton Head Island to provide medical care to low-income families who lived or worked on the island. The venture proved successful, and in about two decades, the nonprofit clinics numbered more than 80 nationwide, 10 of those in South Carolina.

• Woman proves breast cancer diagnosis 'not a death sentence'
  It was a phone call Nelle Pender never expected to receive. Her routine mammogram had revealed an abnormality in her breast.

• Honoring breast cancer survivors
  More than 50 breast cancer survivors walked into Robert Irvine's eat! on a pink carpet Sunday. Each was being honored at the Hilton Head Island restaurant as part of the Hargray Hope Dinner, a chance to recognize those who've battled the disease.

• Step out to support NAMI
  Longtime Hilton Head Island residents Mary and Johnny Hiers didn't know what to think when their son, John, became very withdrawn in his teens.

• With family cancer history against her, local woman chooses surgery
  Nancy Matthess figured the odds were against her. Out of two generations on her mother's side of the family, seven of the nine women developed breast cancer. The eighth girl died as a child. The last one was her.

• Girls Night mixes fun with health info
  For the second year, Beaufort Memorial Hospital will host an entertaining and informational Spirit Girls' Night Out in Bluffton and Beaufort in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

• Power of pink: Walk for a cure Saturday in Bluffton
  The Bluffton Township Fire District Auxiliary is hosting its second annual Lowcountry Rockin' the Pink Breast Cancer Walk on Saturdayat the Bluffton High School track and field area. Registration for the three-mile walk/5K run starts at 7:30 a.m. and opening ceremonies begin at 8:15 a.m. This year's event is presented by the Medical University of South Carolina and Hilton Head Hospital Breast Health Center.

• 'LoCo' for a cure
  Sandra Lunceford has triumphed over breast cancer twice in the past seven years.

• Nurse's compassion receives recognition
  One day a few months ago, a patient was brought into the emergency room at Coastal Carolina Hospital. He had suffered a heart attack while he and his wife were on vacation. The next morning, his condition had worsened. He was near death.

• Family takes up cancer cause
  The news was hard enough for Libby Hull Malphrus and her family when she learned her mother, Sandy Hull, had a form of gynecologic cancer late last year. But as her mother began treatments, the battle against the disease took an unexpected twist. Two months after her mother was diagnosed, Libby learned she also had gynecologic cancer.

• Bluffton Medical Services expands facility
  In a continuing effort to expand medical services south of the Broad River, Beaufort Memorial Hospital has added cardiology and gastroenterology to the list of specialties now available at its outpatient center in Westbury Park in Bluffton.

• Finding new life after brain surgery
  Fourteen months ago, Charlie Rashid's face was frozen in a blank expression, as if he were wearing a mask. Afflicted with Parkinson's disease, he had little muscle coordination and stumbled a lot. He couldn't run or hike, and his condition was getting progressively worse. He figured he had just a few years left until he ended up in a wheelchair.

• Active aging: Older adults use competitive sports to push themselves
  He had jumped out of airplanes before, fulfilling a dream of learning how to skydive. But this was different.

• Cut the cord, save a life
  New babies can bring more than joy and laughter to the world. They also bring the potential for lifesaving medical treatments.

• Coming This Week for Aug. 30
  TODAY