Institute of Spa and Balneology

The spa industry is currently evolving into a modern healthcare sector grounded in real data and innovation. What challenges lie ahead for the Spa Research Center in the near future, and where is the field headed in the coming years? Our institute’s director, Alina Huseynli, MBA, discusses these topics in her latest interview for OPST. In the interview, you will learn, for example: […]

At the end of April, a pilot test of our virtual and augmented reality applications was successfully conducted at the Pawlik spa resort in collaboration with Františkovy Lázně AQUAFORUM a.s. This time, we focused on clients for whom VR provides relief for specific medical conditions. The biggest benefit? The virtual world’s ability to naturally distract attention from pain or physical limitations, allowing clients to exercise with […]

Our colleague Alena Lochmannová, M.A., M.Sc., Ph.D., Ph.D., MBA, represented us at the prestigious Health Education Summit Tallinn (HEST) 2026 in Estonia. In her presentation titled “Immersive VR as Patient Education within Spa-Based Rehabilitation: A Randomized Evaluation,” she focused on how the use of virtual reality can transform traditional spa programs into an educational process. At the same time […]

The General Assembly of the European Historic Thermal Towns Association (EHTTA) was held in the Portuguese spa town of Caldas da Rainha, and we attended as we do every year. The program also included an in-person meeting of the Scientific Committee, of which our director, Ing. Alina Huseynli, MBA, is a member. The discussion focused primarily on the future of European spa tourism, an evidence-based approach, the standardization of terminology in the field of balneology, and new […]

We are preparing the second issue of our professional journal *Spa and Balneology* this year and are seeking scholarly articles on self-care and well-being. We welcome contributions focusing, for example, on spas as a form of guided self-care, lifestyle measures, sleep, stress, exercise, nutrition, digital wellbeing, patient education, measurable outcomes, adherence, and other related areas. We consider this topic to be particularly relevant in connection with […]

At the invitation of Chief Physician Dr. med. Weidauer, we visited the Thermalbad & Rehaklinik Miriquidi in the German spa town of Thermalbad Wiesenbad. The visit took place as a follow-up to last year’s meeting at our institute. The focus of the visit was on research studies and data collection within the CLV project, as well as the spa therapeutic landscape and modern technologies in medical care. It is precisely these […]