The first BrainSpin Coach Certification Workshop successfully took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 5 to 7 May 2026. The three-day event brought together neurologists, kinesiologists, psychologists, table tennis experts, and patient representatives from across the Erasmus+ consortium to lay the educational foundations for the BrainSpin coach certification programme.
The workshop opened with a full day dedicated to the medical and scientific evidence base, featuring presentations on the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease, the effects of medication and Deep Brain Stimulation on training capacity, and a systematic review of current research on table tennis as a therapeutic intervention for people with PD. A session focused on patient perspectives — exploring what people with Parkinson’s disease expect from training and from research — set the person-centred tone for the days that followed.
The second day combined an internal consortium meeting with practical training, including hands-on kinesiological assessment, psychological strategies for coaching people with PD, and a collaborative session in which participants designed and reflected on a model BrainSpin training session. The third and final day moved fully into practice: participants learned from the German Table Tennis Federation’s coaching model, designed and delivered their own adapted table tennis sessions, and received direct feedback from experienced trainers. The workshop closed with a public TEDx-format keynote by Nenad Bach, founder of PingPongParkinson, who shared his personal journey from diagnosis to global advocacy.
An important part of the workshop was dedicated to reaching concrete agreements across the consortium on the next phases of the project. Partners aligned on the design of a structured six-month table tennis intervention for people with Parkinson’s disease, defining session frequency, duration, progression principles, and the coaching standards that will apply across all participating sites. The consortium also agreed on a common assessment battery to be used at the start, midpoint, and end of the intervention, ensuring that motor, cognitive, and quality-of-life outcomes will be measured consistently across all partner countries. In addition, the group finalised the certification procedure for future BrainSpin table tennis coaches, establishing the requirements in terms of theoretical knowledge, e-learning completion, supervised practical hours, and assessment criteria that candidates will need to meet in order to become certified.
Key outcomes of the workshop include a validated set of educational materials for the certification curriculum, aligned exercise protocols and session templates adapted for people with Parkinson’s disease, a defined certification pathway for future BrainSpin coaches, and a shared framework for the consortium’s upcoming intervention study.
The workshop was co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ Sport programme. Further information about the BrainSpin project is available at www.brainspin.si.