A new dimension: How Florida’s only medical 3D Motion Lab of its kind, is getting athletes back in the game

Florida’s only medical 3D Motion Lab of its kind

McKenna Battilla’s story is similar to a lot of young athletes treated by AdventHealth and Rothman Orthopaedics. The Central Florida 16-year-old was living out her dream as a budding soccer star, even drawing attention from U.S. Youth Soccer’s Olympic Development Program.

“I was also getting looked at by a lot of high-level Division one [colleges and universities],” Battilla said. “I was playing my best level of soccer. Everything was just going really well.”

“It was our high school district finals game for soccer, and I was on a breakaway and just took a big leap. And I just came to an abrupt stop and my knee just hyperextended,” Batilla said about the game on January 31, 2024. “I completely tore [my] ACL. Complete tear, both sides of the ACL. I wasn’t able to walk.”

After six months of physical therapy, Battilla transitioned to a pilot program at AdventHealth Sports Med & Rehab Innovation Tower in Orlando. Known as the 3D Motion Lab, it’s the only one of its kind in Florida. The system captures data from a force plate and video from the cameras to create three dimensional images on a computer screen, complete with an overlay of a skeleton showing how the patient’s bones are moving.

“It's a three-dimensional motion analysis system,” says Todd Furman, a senior physical therapist with AdventHealth Sports Med & Rehab Innovation Tower. “It's an Accupower system with eight [ceiling mounted] cameras and a force plate.” That plate looks similar to a trap door on a theatrical stage, but it contains sensors that capture the force of a step or a jump.

The archived video also allows physical therapists to visually compare what a patient does today, to what they did previously.

“You can show [the patient], in detail, where they're making gains compared to previous tests and where perhaps they're not making gains or where they're moving in such a way that might be, injurious to the knee or the ankle or the hip or whatever structure you're looking at,” Furman said.

“We want to take what we do with the elite athletes and provide it to all of our patients,” said Dr. Daryl Osbahr, the executive medical director of the AdventHealth Orthopedic Institute and chief of orthopedic surgery for Rothman Orthopaedics Florida. “The motion analysis system, along with the providers that we have, enable us to thread that needle.”

The 3D motion lab is the kind of technology previously available only to high-level athletes, said Osbahr, who is also one of the physicians tasked with keeping players healthy on the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team.

Watch McKenna's story as she's treated in the 3D Motion Lab by clicking the video at the top of this article.