This year’s Pulmonology Congress of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology, XII Luso-Brazilian Congress of Pulmonology, and 8th Union Europe Conference On Lung Health, took place from the 10th to the 12th of November at the Congress Center of the EPIC Sana Hotel, Algarve.

This is a prestigious scientific event with professionals who work daily in the approach of the respiratory patient and in research in respiratory health, with various scientific and training sessions covering all areas of Pulmonology, whether in diagnosis, disease monitoring, and therapy.  

The project “Personalising physical activity in COPD using digital health – optimization and implementation of the OnTRACK coaching platform”, led by Professor Joana Cruz, ciTechCare researcher, was honoured with the Robalo Cordeiro Award (ex-aequo), a prestigious prize, intended to praise the high quality of the clinical and scientific work developed in the respiratory area in Portugal.  

The distinguished research project was developed together with the Respiratory Research and Rehabilitation Laboratory (Lab3R) from School of Health Science of Aveiro (ESSUA), with the collaboration of Professor Alda Marques, co-researcher, Nuno Morais, Cândida G. Silva, Fernando Silva, José Ribeiro, Paula Simões, Ana Sargento, Ana Oliveira, Chris Burtin and Dina Brooks.  

Nádia Hipólito, ciTechCare PhD fellow, had the opportunity to attend this scientific event representing all the ciTechCare researchers envolved in this project as well as to present the poster “Are indoor and outdoor opportunities for physical activity related to active behaviours in patients with COPD?”, part of the project “OnTRACK – On Time to Rethink ACtivity Knowledge: a personalized mHealth coaching platform to tackle physical inactivity in COPD” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028446), co-authored by Sofia Flora, Jessica Gordo, Sara Pimenta, Nuno Morais, Cândida G. Silva, Marcelo Brites-Pereira, Bruno P. Carreira and Joana Cruz (Principal Investigator), all researchers from ciTechCare.

This work aimed to explore the relationship between self-reported indoor and outdoor physical environmental opportunities for physical activity and actual physical activity levels in patients with COPD.