Nádia Hipólito, a researcher at ciTechCare and former Physiotherapy student at the School of Health Sciences, Polytechnic of Leiria, published an opinion article in Diário de Leiria yesterday, December 30th, about the importance of “Being an informal caregiver and staying active during the pandemic”. The researcher clarifies: “Informal caregiver is defined as someone who provides unpaid assistance to a family member or close person who, for health reasons, is unable to manage their daily life independently.” Informal caregivers face many challenges, from the physical effort associated with providing care to the difficulty in reconciling personal and professional life, with consequences

ciTechCare has another published article this month with the authorship of the researchers Helena Reis, Dulce Gomes and Maria dos Anjos Dixe, also lecturers at ESSLei. The article entitled “A Portuguese Version of the Sensory Processing Measure for Preschool: Analysis of the Internal Consistency and Homogeneity of the Items of School Form” was published in the Revista Brasileira de Educação Especial (doi: 10.1590/1980-54702020v26e0165). This study aimed to examine the internal consistency and items homogeneity of a Portuguese language version of the Sensory Processing Measure-Preschool (SPM-P) in children aged between 2 and 5 years recruited in Nursery Schools. Findings showed that

The article “New measures to support learning and inclusion: perception of occupational therapist’s integrated in Resource Centres for Inclusion (RCI)”, co-authored by Helena Reis and students from the 4th year of the Occupational Therapy course at the School of Health Sciences, Polytechnic of Leiria, was published this month in the Indagatio Didactica journal.This study aimed to understand the perception of occupational therapists integrated in Resource Centres for Inclusion (RCI), regarding the implementation of the new measures to support learning and inclusion, according to Decree-Law No. 54/2018 on inclusive education. Findings suggest that occupational therapists consider that the current legislation has

The article “Corema album spp: Edible wild crowberries with a high content in minerals and organic acids”, co-authored by Ana Cristina Rodrigues, Daniela Vaz and Vânia Ribeiro, researchers at ciTechCare, was published this month in the Food Chemistry Journal. Edible wild plants are part of the ethnobotanical and gastronomic heritage of different geographical areas. In this article, Corema album spp, a species present in the dunes of the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, is presented as a rich source of minerals and organic acids. Specifically, the berries of this plant are rich in minerals such as calcium, iron and

ciTechCare was again in the news of the Jornal de Leiria on December 11th, where an innovative project was presented that will create and test a new approach to prescribing exercise training in cardiac rehabilitation programs, based on direct assessment of the autonomic nervous system. The research project ‘2ARTs -Accessing Autonomic Control in Cardiac RehabiliTaTion’, led by Rui Fonseca-Pinto, a researcher at ciTechCare and the director of @ESSLei, and with the collaboration of the Centro Hospitalar de Leiria, was funded with 230 thousand euros and was ranked in the top ten out of 420 in the panel of Clinical Engineering