This unique medical 3D Motion Lab is getting athletes back in the game

McKenna Battilla’s story is similar to a lot of young athletes treated by AdventHealth and Rothman Orthopaedics.

The 16-year-old from Central Florida 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 I (colleges and universities)," Battilla said. "I was playing my best level of soccer. Everything was just going really well."

That all changed during her high school's district finals game for soccer in January 2024, she said.

"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. "I completely tore (my) ACL -- complete tear, both sides of the ACL. I wasn’t able to walk."

After six months of physical therapy, she transitioned to a pilot program at AdventHealth Sports Med and Rehab Innovation Tower in Orlando.

Known as the 3D Motion Lab, it’s the only of its kind in Florida. The system captures data from a force plate and video from 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," said Todd Furman, a senior physical therapist with AdventHealth Sports Med and 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 previously did.

"You can show (the patient) in detail where they're making gains compared to previous tests and where perhaps they're not making gains," Furman said. "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."

The 3D motion lab is the kind of technology previously only available to high-level athletes, said Daryl Osbahr, MD, executive medical director of the AdventHealth Orthopedic Institute and chief of orthopedic surgery for Rothman Orthopaedics Florida.

"We want to take what we do with the elite athletes and provide it to all of our patients," said Dr. Osbahr, who is also one of the physicians tasked with keeping players healthy on the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team. "The motion-analysis system along with the providers that we have enable us to thread that needle."