Community Intervention

Passus Saudáveis – Peripheral Arterial Disease

It is a supervised exercise program, combined treadmill walking with resistance exercises of lower limbs, performed 3 times per week during 6 months in patients with peripheral artery disease and intermittent claudication. It is measured the walking performance, physical fitness, peripheral blood flow parameters and atherosclerotic risk factors. After the program, a specific mobile app will be used to monitoring the exercise dose in this population.

It is a sports-based training program sustained in the Creativity Developmental Framework (CDF), which is intended to nurture creativity in youth. The core training approaches under the Skills4Genius activities are related with diversification, divergent thinking, physical literacy, teaching-games for understanding and differential learning. Indeed, an environment supported in the previous assumptions is ideally suited to foster creative behavior in team sports and should be considered by coaches and teachers to enrich their practices.

The Physical Exercise for Toddlers and Infants in Family program (PETIZ) is sustained in the physical literacy assumptions intended to promote healthy behaviours for portuguese infants and toddlers to intervene in physical activity, sedentary behaviour, motor competence and food education. The aim of PETIZ is to create a gymnastics-based intervention tailored for infants and toddlers (9 to 36 months aged) that is sustained on physical literacy to promote healthy behaviours. The theory behind this program is based on the Aucoutier method which highlights the importance of basic movement, motor skills to provide motor development and self-identity construction, facilitating the stimulation of communication, expression and creative thinking. Additionally, we promote in exercise classes, different strategies such as “guided discovery”, Role Play Activities and storytelling.

Evidence-based exercise training program – combining different types of resisted, aerobic and agility exercises, in a total of 180 minutes per week – for sedentary elderly people with more than 65 years old, aiming to gradually introduce the use of wearable devices to individually monitor exercise sessions, and information and communication technologies that enable simple exercise training tasks in a home-based setting. The technology integration enables the research team to constantly monitor and adapt the exercise sessions in an individualized manner.