Antonio Cuesta-Vargas

University of Malaga | UMA · Department of Physiotherapy

Introduction In 2023, 35,000 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed, becoming the first type of tumour diagnosed in Spain. This tumour and its treatments generate important changes in the patient’s quality of life. Alterations in the range of motion, pain and both physical and psychological disability are some of the effects that breast cancer g...

Recovery is a holistic approach to mental health care which focusses on the ability of people with mental disorders to achieve their goals and live full, meaningful lives despite their limitations. Recovery assessment tools are instruments that make it possible to measure the progress of people with mental disorders on their path to recovery. To ex...

Background Glenohumeral instability is a highly prevalent pathology; however, there are problems in defining it. Traditionally, structural problems such as labral injury or bone loss in the glenoid cavity and/or humeral side were considered the main causes; but recently, it has been seen that motor control plays a very relevant role. This means tha...

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide, and advances in early detection and treatment have significantly increased survival rates. However, people living beyond breast cancer often suffer from late sequelae, negatively impacting their quality of life. Prehabilitation, focusing on the period prior to surgery, is a unique o...

Introduction Cancer is amongst the leading causes of death worldwide. A total of 19.3 million new cases were diagnosed in 2020. Cardiovascular impairment is the second leading cause of death in patients undergoing cancer treatment. By measuring the maximum rate of oxygen consumption (VO2max) in cancer patients, it is possible to estimate their card...

Background: To implement recovery-oriented practice, it is important to have instruments capable of evaluating such practice. A number of different questionnaires have been developed in recent years which measure recovery orientation in mental health services. Objective: To identify and analyze patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) reported...

Background Reducing teacher subjectivity and checking skill corrections have an impact on the manual therapy learning, one of the most crucial components of physical therapy clinical practise. The aim of this study was to analyse the effectiveness of a kinematic real-time feedback strategy (KRTF) with an inertial sensor as a new methodology for the...

Context : The Upper Limb Functional Index (ULFI) is a popular tool with valid psychometric properties to assess upper limb function in patients with musculoskeletal conditions. The aim of the study was to cross-culturally adapt and validate the German version of the ULFI. Design : Cross-cultural validation. Methods : A 2-stage cross-cultural adapta...

Background Breast cancer is a prevalent form of cancer among women worldwide, often accompanied by physical and psychological side effects due to the disease and the treatment’s aggressiveness. Regular physical exercise has emerged as a non-pharmacological approach to improve the quality of life of breast cancer survivors. We herein report the prot...

Objetivo Establecer un decálogo de competencias en autocuidado para guiar la educación durante los programas de rehabilitación cardiaca (RC) en pacientes con insuficiencia cardiaca con fracción de eyección preservada (IC-FEp), mediante un consenso multidisciplinario. Diseño Estudio e-Delphi en tres rondas a partir de un cuestionario inicial de 23...

Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic physical exercise (TPE) interventions on the physical functioning, psychosocial well-being, and quality of life (QoL) of children undergoing treatment for cancer. Method Systematic review: databases were searched in April 2023. Selection criteria: children (<18 years old) undergoing treatment fo...

BACKGROUND Digitization has experienced a great growth in the last years and has emerged as a very promising tool for health interventions, but it is necessary to evaluate the variables that may influence the results of this intervention and are related with the patients such as rejection, addition, or stress due to the use of technological devices...

Running is one of the most popular sports practiced today and biomechanical variables are fundamental to understanding it. The main objectives of this study are to describe kinetic, kinematic, and spatiotemporal variables measured using four inertial measurement units (IMUs) in runners during treadmill running, investigate the relationships between...

Background Brief whole-spine patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) provide regional solutions and future directions for quantifying functional status, evidence, and effective interventions. The whole-spine regional Spine Functional Index (SFI-25) is used internationally in clinical and scientific contexts to assess general sub-acute/chronic spi...

In the contemporary sports science domain, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a pivotal tool, driving breakthroughs in athlete training and rehabilitation. Personalized training schedules, sculpted through AI algorithms, promise optimized performance and reduced injury likelihood. Wearable technologies, combined with AI-boosted functionali...

Background: Optimal sports performance requires a balance between intensive training and adequate rest. IMUs provide objective, quantifiable data to analyze performance dynamics, despite the challenges in quantifying athlete training loads. The ability of AI to analyze complex datasets brings innovation to the monitoring and optimization of athlete...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an indispensable tool in the field of sports science, providing unparalleled benefits in athlete health, training, and performance optimization. Our research delves into four major AI-based application pipelines in sports: Firstly, we underscore the significance of early detection of brain injuries and anomal...

The paper examines the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in parsing text and conducting sentiment analysis to identify early markers of mental health and neurodegenerative disorders. Through the analysis of textual data, we investigate whether AI can provide a noninvasive, continuous, and objective complement to traditional diagnostic pract...

Background Patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) have a low functional status, which in turn is a risk factor for hospital admission and an important predictor of survival in HFpEF. HFpFE is a heterogeneous syndrome and recent studies have suggested an important role for careful, pathophysiological-based phenotyping t...

sRPE and ACWR are valuable tools for controlling fatigue levels and minimizing injuries in performance sports. Their ability to provide individualized assessment, integrate subjective and objective measures, and inform data-driven decision-making makes them essential components of a comprehensive sports safety and performance monitoring system. The...

Voice-based disease detection with Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, offering cost-effective, non-invasive, and accessible diagnostic methods for a wide range of diseases. The development of voice-based disease detection systems requires collaboration between multiple fields, including data science, linguistics,...

Early detection and intervention of injuries, lesions, or brain anomalies can significantly improve athletes recovery process, reducing long-term impact and unexpected health side effects. AI-supported health anomaly detection systems provide high accuracy and consistency in real-time image analysis, out-performing human counterparts, especially in...

The usages of You Only Look Once (YOLO) and You Only Look Once Neural Architecture Search (YOLO-NAS) models in digital tracking and strategy extraction from videos are multi-fold. Firstly, these models aim to accurately detect and track players and objects in real time, providing comprehensive data on their movements and interactions. Secondly, the...

Objective: to conduct and report a scoping review of the available evidence of the effects and content of pain neuroscience education for patients with persistent painful tendinopathies. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and grey literature databases were searched from database inception to May 2022. Randomised and no...

Introduction: Combating physical inactivity and reducing sitting time are one of the principal challenges proposed by public health systems. Gamification has been seen as an innovative, functional, and motivating strategy to encourage patients to increase their physical activity (PA) and reduce sedentary lifestyles through behavior change technique...

Background: One of the most critical topics in sports safety today is the reduction in injury risks through controlled fatigue using non-invasive athlete monitoring. Due to the risk of injuries, it is prohibited to use accelerometer-based smart trackers, activity measurement bracelets, and smart watches for recording health parameters during perfo...

Background: Remote diagnosis using collaborative tools have led to multilingual joint working sessions in various domains, including comprehensive health care, and resulting in more inclusive health care services. One of the main challenges is providing a real-time solution for shared documents and presentations on display to improve the efficacy o...

Neck disorders have a significant impact on people because of their high incidence. The head-mounted display (HMD) systems, such as Meta Quest 2, grant access to immersive virtual reality (iRV) experiences. This study aims to validate the Meta Quest 2 HMD system as an alternative for screening neck movement in healthy people. The device provides da...

Unlabelled: Breast cancer survivors (BCS) may face functional alterations after surgical intervention. Upper Limb Disorders (ULDs) are highly prevalent even years after a diagnosis. Clinicians may assess the upper limbs after breast cancer. The Upper Limb Functional Index (ULFI) has been validated across different populations and languages. This s...

Aims: To assess kinematic parameters related to functional capacity, fatigue and breathlessness during the 6MWT in patients with HFpEF. Methods and results: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which adults 70 years or older with HFpEF were voluntarily recruited between April 2019 and March 2020. An inertial sensor was placed at the L3-L4 le...

Pain after cancer remains underestimated and undertreated. Precision medicine is a recent concept that refers to the ability to classify patients into subgroups that differ in their susceptibility to, biology, or prognosis of a particular disease, or in their response to a specific treatment, and thus to tailor treatment to the individual patient c...

Introduction/background: Breast cancer survivors (BCS) frequently show upper limb dysfunctions. The forearm muscle activity measured by surface electromyography (sEMG) in this population has not been studied. This study aimed to describe forearm muscle activity in BCS, as well as to assess its possible relationship with other variables related to...

Background: The aim of this study was to analyze differences in three-dimensional shoulder kinematics between asymptomatic subjects and patients who were diagnosed with rotator cuff tears. Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 13 symptomatic subjects and 14 asymptomatic subjects. Data were obtained from three inertial sensors placed on t...

Background Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic widespread pain syndrome characterized primarily by widespread pain, fatigue, sleep dysfunction and low exercise tolerance. The pathophysiology is complex and its understanding evolving, and clinical management is difficult, with heterogeneous interventions employed. Objectives This scoping revie...

It is a challenge to manage and assess heart failure with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (HFpEF) patients. Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) is used in this clinical population as a functional test. The objective of the study was to assess gait and kinematic parameters in HFpEF patients during the 6MWT with an inertial sensor and to discrim...

Heart failure (HF)-related factors potentially lead to sarcopenia. Ultrasound (US) assessment has all the advantages of being used in clinical practice to assess muscle architecture. This study aimed to assess the relationship between the quadriceps femoris (QF) muscle architecture with the gender, age, body mass index (BMI), muscle strength and ph...

Background: The efficacy of eccentric exercise self-performed by the patient has not been proved in the treatment of lateral elbow tendinopathy (LET). The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a programme of eccentric exercises applied by a physiotherapist to patients with LET through a structured manual programme compared to its self-pe...

As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Global Digital Transformation (DX) process, with its key milestones, is being rewritten. In recent years, the importance of multilingual remote diagnostics has grown significantly, and the importance of human language translators and machine translation interfaces (translator bots) is now recognized more th...

There is no specific designed diagnostic test for post-poliomyelitis syndrome. The most important symptoms of this syndrome are new loss of muscle strength and more fatigue. Previous studies have investigated muscle ultrasound parameters to distinguish neuromuscular disease patients from healthy controls. The aim of this study was to investigate if...

Ultrasound imaging texture analyses may provide information on tissue homogeneity changes in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) through second-order analyzes based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix. This study aimed to analyze the responsiveness and correlations of biomarkers of muscular and fat echotexture after an exercise intervention in women...

Background: There is little information on the feasibility and benefit of therapeutic exercise (TE) in women with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). The aim of this article is to describe the implementation of a TE intervention in MBC patients, and to determine the recruitment, compliance and improvement in outcomes after its completion. Methods: T...

Introduction: Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) is the most used scale to measure pain catastrophizing. In breast cancer survivors (BCS), pain catastrophizing is related to upper-limbs dysfunction and disability. This study aimed to assess the internal consistency, internal structure and convergent validity of the Spanish version of the PCS in Span...

Background Sarcopenia is an important comorbidity in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The ultrasound (US) assessment has all the advantages of being used in primary care to assess muscle quantity and quality. Some biomarkers could be indicative of muscle mass loss. Aims To describe the quantitative and qualitat...

Background: Central sensitization symptoms and pain-related fear avoidance are two common problems in breast cancer survivors. Non-pharmacologic interventions such as therapeutic exercise and patient education can be effective in this population. Aims: This study aimed to: (1) analyze the benefits of a therapeutic exercise and educational progra...

Background Among upper limb tendinopathies, rotator cuff-related shoulder pain and lateral elbow tendinopathy are the most representative disorders. Therapeutic exercise arises as an effective approach, but there is no consensus about the optimal progression criteria. Objective To compare progression criteria and effectiveness of isolated, progres...

Purpose To determine whether the 30-s sit-to-stand (30STS) test can be a valid tool for estimating and stratifying peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak) and 6-min walking distance (6MWD) in women with breast cancer. Methods This cross-sectional study uses data from the ONCORE randomized controlled trial, including 120 women aged 18–70 years with early-stag...

Objectives Although exercise is considered the preferred approach for tendinopathies, the actual load that acts on the tendon in loading programmes is usually unknown. The objective of this study was to review the techniques that have been applied in vivo to estimate the forces and strain that act on the human tendon in dynamic exercises used durin...

Real-time multilingual phrase detection from/during online video presentations—to support instant remote diagnostics—requires near real-time visual (textual) object detection and preprocessing for further analysis. Connecting remote specialists and sharing specific ideas is most effective using the native language. The main objective of this paper...

Purpose: To develop a physical function test based on lie-to-sit transition and to study its feasibility in patients suffering from metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 90 women diagnosed with MBC. Patients were asked to transfer from lying to sitting position as fast as possible during 30 s...

Background: The 6-Min Walking Test (6MWT) has been proposed to assess functional aerobic capacity in patients with heart failure, but many older adults with heart failure cannot complete it. The adequacy of the 5-repetition Sit-To-Stand (5-STS), a simpler test than 6MWT, to assess the functional aerobic capacity in older adults with heart failure h...

The study’s purpose was to assess the reliability of the LIS2DH12 in two different positions, using the commercial sensor Actigraph GT9X as a reference instrument. Five participants completed two gait tests on a treadmill. Firstly, both sensors were worn on the wrist and around the thigh. Each test consisted of a 1 min walk for participants to beco...

Shoulder kinematics is a measure of interest in the clinical setting for diagnosis, evaluating treatment, and quantifying possible changes. The aim was to compare shoulder scaption kinematics between symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects by inertial sensors. Methods: Scaption kinematics of 27 subjects with shoulder symptomatology and 16 asymptoma...

Through this study, we developed and validated a system for energy expenditure calculation, which only requires low-cost inertial sensors and open source R software. Five healthy subjects ran at ten different speeds while their kinematic variables were recorded on the thigh and wrist. Two ActiGraph wireless inertial sensors and a low-cost Bluetooth...

Background: The aim of the present study was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing walking test performance and gait pattern between individuals with and without fibromyalgia (FM). Methodology: This systematic review was registered in PROSPERO with the following reference: CRD42018116200.The search for the scientific article...

Aim To design an index that categorizes older people according to motor and cognitive functions. Materials and methods An analytical cross-sectional study assessing 38 older people (over 65 years) was performed to design a cognitive-motor outpatient index using the Mini-Mental State Examination, the motor memory test (MMT) and the Timed Up and Go...

Background Breast cancer survivors (BCS) face several symptoms and are at higher risk of weight gain following diagnosis. Current literature shows that both exercise and diet play a key role in recovery of BCS. However, there is a gap between current guidelines and the real-world context. The aim of this article is to describe the process behind a...

Long COVID patients present a cluster of symptoms that overlaps with other post-infectious conditions, such as patients diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Besides fatigue, one of the most limiting clinical manifestations in ME/CFS is post-exertional malaise (PEM), which Long COVID patients also report. There...

Purpose People with intellectual disabilities have lower levels of physical fitness compared with peers without intellectual disability, because of the high levels of sedentary behaviour in this population. This study aims to know the relationship between quality of life and physical fitness in adults with intellectual disability. Design/methodolo...

To support collaborative tools with multilingual interpretation using Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled background for remote video diagnosis, we handle one of the hot topics nowadays: real-time multilingual translation. COVID-19 has forced an accelerated speed of Digital Transformation, highlighting the weakest points of video conference tools:...

There are a large number of mobile applications that allow the monitoring of health status. The quality of the applications is only evaluated by users and not by standard criteria. This study aimed to examine depression-related applications in major mobile application stores and to analyze them using the rating scale tool Mobile Application Rating...

Introduction There is no systematic review that analyzes the psychometric properties of questionnaires in Italian. Previous studies have analyzed the psychometric characteristics of instruments for the measurement of pathologies of upper limbs and their joints in different languages. The aim of the present study was to analyze the psychometric prop...

Background: Breast cancer survivors may have side effects from treatment, such as impaired upper limb function after surgery, which may be affected by a range of factors. Objective: To analyze the association between upper limb function and strength, fear avoidance, and central sensitization symptoms among breast cancer survivors, and to explore...

Resumen Objetivo El Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM) es un cuestionario extendido internacionalmente para patología de pie y tobillo. El propósito del estudio fue desarrollar y validar la versión española de 29 ítems del cuestionario FAAM para las subescalas de Actividades de la Vida Diaria (AVD) y DEPORTE en el área de rehabilitación. Mater...

Background The relevance of local twitch response (LTR) during dry needling technique (DNT) is controversial, and it is questioned whether LTR is necessary for successful outcomes. Furthermore, because the LTR during the deep DNT may be evoked with different intensities, it is unknown whether the magnitude of LTR intensity is associated with optima...

A human motion capture system using an RGB-D camera could be a good option to understand the trunk limitations in spondyloarthritis. The aim of this study is to validate a human motion capture system using an RGB-D camera to analyse trunk movement limitations in spondyloarthritis patients. Cross-sectional study was performed where spondyloarthritis...