Featured research projects — in depth

Alphletix — AI system

A regionally funded research project building an artificial-intelligence system that predicts musculoskeletal injuries in young athletes — starting with football — from wearable sensors, laboratory tests and physiological indicators, using machine-learning and deep-learning models with an Open-Science commitment. A University of Thessaly collaboration between the Department of Physiotherapy and the Department of Informatics with Applications in Biomedicine, with the companies Physiopraxis and The Medical Project.

SportsComp — Higher Education to Improve Competency in Sports Physiotherapy

A three-year Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership updating the international sports-physiotherapy competencies and turning them into e-learning courses at EQF level 7. CeprLab (University of Thessaly) is the Greek partner; the consortium is coordinated by Jamk University of Applied Sciences (Finland).

The published Delphi protocol — Tassignon et al., 2024, Int J Sports Phys Ther — describes the international, multidisciplinary methodology used to identify competencies through expert consensus; the project's work-package outputs build directly on it.

Key objectives

• Update the international sports-physiotherapy competency framework through a multi-country Delphi consensus
• Design and pilot e-learning courses aligned to European Qualification Framework (EQF) level 7
• Strengthen digital teaching competences of faculty, PhD candidates, and postgraduate students
• Disseminate updated competencies to national associations and IFSPT member organisations

TELEWEAR-CR — Cardiac telerehabilitation with wearable sensors

A randomised controlled trial testing whether supervised, home-based cardiac rehabilitation guided by wearable sensors is as effective and safe as hospital-based rehabilitation for patients with coronary heart disease. Funded by the Hellenic Cardiology Society (award, 45th Panhellenic Cardiology Congress, 2024). The study protocol (BMJ Open, 2022) is published and the trial registered (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05019157).

Key objectives

• Assess the clinical efficacy of wearable-sensor-monitored cardiac telerehabilitation versus conventional care
• Evaluate safety, adherence, and patient-reported satisfaction in remotely monitored cohorts
• Compare functional capacity and cardiovascular outcomes between the intervention groups

Empathy VR — Curriculum Development using VR Technology to Enhance Empathetic Communication Skills in Future Healthcare Professionals

Empathy VR was a three-year Erasmus+ K2 strategic partnership exploring whether virtual-reality-based curriculum tools improve empathetic communication skills in future healthcare professionals across European partner universities.