Advancing Return to Sport: Integrating Digital Tools, Guidelines, and AI for Individualized Cardiovascular Management

Return to sport following acute and chronic medical conditions represent a critical part of the everyday medical practice. The medical advise, given to the physically active patients, is always fraught with several challenges, as clinicians balance concerns around safety, individualized prescription of activity, and the prevention of adverse events. The complexity is amplified by the heterogeneity of underlying conditions—ranging from acute myocardial infarction and stroke to chronic disorders such as ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes—and the variability in patient profiles. Despite recent advancements in guideline recommendations, real-world implementation remains inconsistent across both athletic and non-athletic populations, highlighting a persistent need for standardization, innovation and interdisciplinary discussions.This special issue topic aims to synthesize the evolving landscape of return-to-sport (RTS) protocols, focusing on the integration of digital health monitoring and artificial intelligence to enhance patient care. Digital tools, including wearables, remote monitoring platforms, implantable sensors, and AI-driven analytics, are revolutionizing RTS pathways by enabling individualized risk stratification, continuous physiologic assessment, and dynamic adjustment of activity and rehabilitation plans. These technologies offer new insights into patient adherence, training tolerance, and early warning of deterioration, with the potential to bridge the gap between evidence-based guidelines and practical implementation. By bringing together multidisciplinary expertise, the collection will promote strategies that make RTS safer, more equitable, and more effective for diverse patient cohorts.To gather further insights into digitally enabled return-to-sport pathways and their impact on patient outcomes, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Evidence-based RTS protocols after acute and chronic cardiovascular or systemic conditions, including protocols for both athletes and non-athletes- Clinical trials, registries, and real-world studies of RTS outcomes with digital monitoring integration- Methodology and validation of wearables, remote ECG, hemodynamic sensors, and AI-based risk or event detection- Operationalizing guidelines and best practices: Implementation science, workflow optimization, and health economic analyses for digital RTS pathways- Case series, technical reports, and diverse population studies (from pediatric to masters athletes, recreational to elite performers)- Ethical, regulatory, and data governance perspectives, including algorithm transparency, privacy, equity, and global accessibility considerations- Translational insights: Bridging basic science, exercise physiology, and digital solution development into clinical practiceThe scope of this special issue topic includes all article types, with the overarching objective to operationalize safe, scalable, and personalized RTS pathways enabled by the latest digital and AI-driven technology. Topic editors: Zsolt Szelid, Evert Verhagen, Professor Attila Szabo Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76097/advancing-return-to-sport-integrating-digital-tools-guidelines-and-ai-for-individualized-cardiovascular-management