The six-time Paralympic champion will be hoping to display strong form at the Championships on Portuguese  island Funchal, the last major competition ahead of this year's Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. 

Ahead of what would be her fifth appearance in the Paralympics, the 40-year-old hopes the event will provide her with the opportunity to test her form and ability to recover, due to her packed competition schedule.

“I have the minimum qualifying times for Rio so I don’t have any pressure,” said Perales.

“I only want to see if I recover well between all the events because I will swim every day.

“I have seven races in seven days, so I need to see if I can do it, so in Rio I can swim very well.”

Perales will expect to face fierce competition with Norway’s Sarah Louise Rung in the women’s S5 class events throughout the duration of the Championships, scheduled to take place until May 7.

Both swimmers claimed four titles at the 2014 edition of the Championships in Eindhoven.

Perales has played down talk of her potential retirement after the Paralympic Games and is hoping to help several of Spain’s younger swimmers to reach their potential.

“We have some projects, one of which has been running for four years, more for the physically disabled such as cerebral palsy and visually impaired and I think they are doing very well,” Perales, who made her Paralympic Games debut at Sydney 2000, said. 

“We tried to pick up some swimmers from around Spain.

“We try to motivate them and I think this is a good chance for them to be with us and share the experience.”

A total of 453 athletes from 52 countries are expected to compete over the seven days of competition.

Swimmers from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Indonesia, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore will be among those competing as the event is open to non-European entries.

The Championships are due to be broadcast live and in full on the event’s official website here