Partner

The Institute of Sports Medicine and Science (IMSS) is a national health care and scientific structure of Coni Servizi. Its role is to implement, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Italian National Olympic Committee projects pertaining to sports medicine aimed both at practical application and scientific research.In particular the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science programs look to the implementation of the scientific health care structure for Olympic level and high level athletes in order to:guarantee optimal health and physical efficiency

• prevent sports related injuries and pathologies
• ensure an athlete’s recovery and reconditioning after injury or disease

On account of the studies and research the Institute has carried out and of its highly qualified operators, is considered in Italy and abroad, a point of reference for clinical scientific and educational matters in the field of sports medicine and ensures continuity in sports and high quality standards of the services offered to National Sports Federations, Associated disciplines and to the territory.

The Institute of Sports Medicine and Science was established by CONI in 1965, with a view to ensuring evaluation, medical and physiological examinations and assistance to Olympic level and high level athletes.  In the following years the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science supported the National Sports Federations by performing medical and physical evaluation of high level athletes aimed at prevention, clinical pathology, treatment and rehabilitation. Data collected over the years with this activity allowed the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science to create an outstanding database, unique in its kind, referred to the evaluation of over 30.000 athletes. At the same time the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science became involved in scientific research, an activity that has progressively developed and now encompasses all the issues of Sports Medicine. For several aspects, in particular studies centred on morphological and functional modifications of the athlete’s heart, the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science is undeniably considered a reference point in national and international scientific literature. Proof of the level of activity performed in this field can be found in the organization and active participation in several national and international conventions; direct involvement of the institute’s physicians in the activity of major Italian and foreign scientific Societies, as founding members and/or members of the Board of Directors, scientific cooperation with celebrated Italian and foreign Institutions. Didactic and educational activities, carried out by the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science physicians, have become increasingly prominent over the years. These are performed within the framework of agreement between CONI and Sports Medicine Specialization Courses of a number of universities: Università “La Sapienza”, Università “Tor Vergata”, Università Cattolica, in Rome and Università dell’Aquila. Similarly, the editorial activities have progressively increased with the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science physicians involved in the Editorial Board of outstanding national and international scientific magazines and contributing to Italian and foreign magazines with scientific papers and studies. In response to the change in CONI top management in 2013, the Institute of Sports Medicine and Science has recently changed its internal organization and its mission. The Institute of Sports Medicine and Science opens the doors to the amateurs and to the general population, offering its experience in the field of physical exercise to the public health, in primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. In particular the service of cardiovascular prevention offers programs of  Cardiac Rehabilitation.

The Institute of Sports Medicine and Science has at the moment 20 between physicians, physiotherapists and administrative as employees, and many specialists as consultants.

http://scienzadellosport.coni.it/

The « Hungarian Sport and Lifestyle Development Cluster » was established on the 12th of May 2011.

The Centre for Agricultural and Applied Economic Sciences of the University of Debrecen is a key support member of the cluster. The centre will lead significant tasks, related to sports, healthy lifestyle and to associated innovational activities, by means of their vast infrastructural, educational and research foundation. The cluster member’s common interests can be summarized as follows:

1. more efficient spread of a healthier lifestyle among the population
2. rise of the demand for sport related services, and for goods made by healthy-foodstuff producers
3. increase in the quality of the services offered by sport service providers, by the usage of synergy coming from collaboration; from application of best practices and from the supply of complex customer demands – increased due to tuition
4. practical usage of scientific outcomes i.e. connection of R&D and educational institutions with the services of the SMBs, and therefore assist them bringing innovative products to the market
5. increase the utilization rate of the current sport and logistic facilities, touristic services and of the connected/connectable infrastructure
6. efficiently and varyingly supply the increased demand by offering a diverse service portfolio
7. plan and elaborate conjoint professional programs (ex: sport academy), and provide assistance to the regional sport associations in order to facilitate their access to funding
8. adopt new sports, and increase the popularity of the current ones and their clubs
9. bring a greater number of domestic and international sport events to the region by earning the hosting rights

The Laboratory of Sports Medicine of AUTh was established in 1992. It is the biggest Sports Medicine centre in Greece which is standardized by ISO 2007. The main staff of the Laboratory includes 7 professors and 8 researchers, who are skilled and are experts in sports cardiology, exercise physiology, sports nutrition and physical rehabilitation. The laboratory of Sports Medicine is a fully equipped for non-invasive cardiac evaluation of athletes. It collaborates with many sports clubs and leagues for the screening of athletes. And until today, there have been more than 30,000 athletes examined in the laboratory. The last 25 years cardiac and renal rehabilitation programs are applied in the Laboratory of Sports Medicine. More than 200 patients with chronic cardiac diseases exercise free of charge every year in Thessaloniki’s Public Gyms. Additionally, renal rehabilitation program is performed in the Renal Unit of AHEPA Hospital. Exercise training programs for children with oncologic diseases and cystic fibrosis, and for adults with diabetes mellitus and psychiatric disorders are performed, also. The person in charge of the rehabilitation programs is Evangelia Kouidi, Professor of Sports Medicine and Cardiologist, who specializes in conducting long-term physical rehabilitation studies and evaluation of the anatomical and functional adaptive effects of exercise training for patients with chronic cardiac and renal diseases. The Director of the Laboratory is Dr. Asterios Deligiannis, who is a Cardiologist, and a Professor of Sports Medicine. He is extremely experienced in sports cardiology, and his research focuses on the cardiovascular adaptations of exercise training. Dr. Asterios Deligiannis is the primary investigator of many projects. He has successfully published more than 500 manuscripts in scientific journals and was invited as the lecturer in a lot of International Congresses. In the education sector, the members of the Laboratory participate in two postgraduate programs (one of them in Sports Medicine). Furthermore, the Laboratory organizes an annual post graduate teleconference course in Sports Medicine between Greece and Cyprus. Moreover, the personnel have participated in 5 EU projects as well as 57 national projects in Greece.

ISES was founded in 2008 as non-profit organization to spread European culture in Italy and to get closer public agencies, businesses and the third sector to the EU institutions through the development of funded projects following their whole bureaucratic, administrative and managerial path in accordance with the rules laid down by the European Commission. Since its creation, ISES has worked in projects dealing with health and sports promotion. In particular, ISES cooperates since 2009 with different associations for sports promotion to implement projects at regional and national level.

Since 2014, ISES personnel cooperates with CONI in the ERASMUS+ SPORT COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIP PROJECT “TAKE HEART – Physical activity in patients with CHD: a collaborative partnership  to identify and share good practices among European countries” (ERA-COPART – G.A. 2014-3140/002-001) to engage cardiac patients and motivate them to perform Cardiac Rehabilitation and to maintain an high adherence to physical activity programs and therefore to increased levels of participation in sport and physical activity and witn the Italian Rowing Federation in the ERASMUS+ SPORT NON PROFIT SPORT EVENT “PARAROWING” (572869-EPP-1-2016-1-IT-SPO-SNCESE) to organize a sport event – in collaboration with UK and French Rowing Federation – for disabled young people and encourage them to get out from their houses and do some sport.

At present, ISES is partner in two ERASMUS+ SPORT projects: “FAIRHAP – Fair Play and Happiness through Sports (579709-EPP-1-2016-2-EL-SPO-SCP)” to spread Olympic and fair play values among children aged 10-12 and “Youth Sport Development Ambassadors – YSDA” (GA: 2016 – 2771/001-001) that focuses on peer led voluntary action in sport to promote social inclusion in sport for young people aged between 16 and 24. The focus will be on developing YSDAs to develop projects with groups of young people from ethnic minority and migrant populations.

Over the years, ISES has extended its actions to the areas of culture, social policies, tourism, environment, civil protection and training and it has developed a considerable network of contacts at international level, thanks also to the 18 EU funded projects in which it is partner/main applicant.

ISES has long experience in managing EU projects and managing communication and dissemination activities. It has been the responsible for the communication in all its projects developing the project communication strategy, tools and materials. In particular, ISES developed and managed different platform for e-learning and clearinghouses: www.aurora-project.eu, www.salux-project.eu, www.hcube-project.eu, www.spring-project.eu and related communication/information campaigns.

University Institute of Sports Medicine, Prevention and Rehabilitation (Head of institute, Prof. Dr. Dr. Josef Niebauer, MBA)

Salzburg Austria

Since 2008, the UIS is a fully equipped outpatient clinic for cardiac rehabilitation. About, 30 patients can train simultaneously, endurance exercise or resistance exercise. The clinic is staffed with two physicians, two sports scientists, and a physiotherapist. The UIS is completed by the department of sport medicine, and the research institute to fulfill scientific research.

Medically supervised persons in 2013

Patients in rehabilitation: 195

Units of rehabilitation: 10500

Attendance of patients: 3002

Jessa Hospital’s Heart Centre Hasselt is a large non-university secondary referral centre localised in an association of 2 hospitals (total 1300 beds), with 18 cardiologists. All different subspecialties are present: invasive and interventional cardiology, specialised rythmology, intensive coronary care unit, cardiac imaging and cardiovascular rehabilitation. The rehabilitation centre is one of the largest in Belgium, treating more than 750 acute cardiac patients in ambulatory rehabilitation divided over the two sites, with 7 cardiac rehabilitation specialists involved (4 male, 3 female). Heart Centre Hasselt has a significant clinical research track record on cardiac rehabilitation and telerehabilitation, as evidenced by the following:

Jessa Hospital Heart Centre Hasselt’s team:

• Was the big winner in the Agoria e-Health Awards in 2012, for the Jessa Cardiac Rehabilitation project, called Telerehab II. Telerehab II was awarded with the Agoria Best e-Health Project prize. This prize is awarded for an e-Health project that impresses the jury by its innovative qualities, its sense for collaboration, profitability and improvement of the quality of care. Telerehab II also won the Agoria Best Tele-Health & Tele-Care Project prize for being a promising e-Health project that combines the most recent technological innovations in a Tele-Health & Tele-Care project;
• Was acknowledged and supported by Flanders’ Care for their Telerehab III project in 2013. Flanders’care is a program from the Flemish government that has the primary aim to improve quality of care and entrepreneurship with innovative projects and to stimulate the health care economics. The support of Flanders’ Care, emphasized their strong belief in telemonitoring projects such as Telerehab III on a governmental level;
• Ended second in the Hack for Health competition 2013 with their telerehabilitation coaching program for cardiac patients, a competition supported by Microsoft and Health Startup Europe. In this competition several teams competed to be the most promising and viable eHealth startup.

http://www.hartcentrumhasselt.be/professioneel/onderzoek/wetenschappelijk-onderzoek

This hospital is the biggest cardiac rehabilitation centre in Hungary with its 427 beds, up-to-date facilities appliances. It is suitable for evaluation of the actual state of the different cardiovascular diseases. At the same time it also gives opportunity to treat the rheumatic complaints of the patients with the aid of physiotherapy, C02-baths, calisthenics etc. The CO2-bath is one of the best known healing factors in Balatonfüred. The Kossuth-spring and other springs nearby the hospital deliver water containing free and bound C02 iron, magnesium, potassium, hydrocarbonate, calcium, sodium, sulphur and other minerals. The temperature of the spring water is 14-15oC. It is collected into a big basin and piped into the spa-building. Then the C02-rich water is warmed up to 32-34oC and used for treatment.

Another advantage of this place is the excellent microclimate. Lake Balaton on one side and a fairly big forest surrounded by nice hills on the other result in a milder winter, an early spring and a longer autumn. The air is clean and the humidity is moderate. These factors cause a curative effect on the cardiac patients.

It is very important to measure the physical capacity of cardiac patients. For this purpose the hospital has the necessary appliances used by well-trained staff. For the security of our patients we have an intensive care unit with 4 beds. Patients with recent myocardial infarction and severe rhythm disturbances are treated here. Not only defibrillators and pulmonary wedge pressure measurements are available, but next to the intensive care unit X-ray pictures could be taken if it is necessary. Besides this we can perform radioisotope cardiac examinations to evaluate of the haemodynamic status of the severely ill patients. Every kind of radioisotope determination, including exercise stress testing is performed in our isotope laboratory. 2-dimensional and colour echocardiographs help the doctors make the correct diagnosis of cardiac diseases.

For special conduction and rhythm disturbances we perform electrophysiological examinations to find the most appropriate treatment. Additional 24-hour ECG monitoring can also have an essential value in cases like this. Pacemaker implantation is one of the specialities of the hospital. The hospital receives patients from the whole region to consider the necessity of pacemaker therapy, and to perform the implantation. After that we do regular follow-up examinations, too. We also implant special types of pacemakers (e.g. defibrillator, biventricular systems). In the electrophysiological laboratory a wide range of supraventricular tachycardia can be definively treated by radiofrequency ablation. After a few years of development we are we now able to perform the up-to-date intracoronary interventions in high wolume. There are two operating rooms in which the diagnostic coronary angiographics, the intracoronary pressure measuring procedures and the coronary dilatation interventions (balloon dilatation, stent implantation) are done. Our haemodynamic team can receive patients with acute myocardial infarction continuously to open the occluded coronary so that the myocardial damage could be considerably reduced. Intracoronary ultrasound examination (IVUS) is also available.