The most powerful innovation stems from identifying a pressing problem.
Assistant Professor Estephania “Steph” Nuñez was alarmed by the rising incidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears—especially among young athletes. Drawing on her clinical athletic training experience at the collegiate and semi-professional levels, she set out to develop a tool to prevent this knee injury.
“ACL tears are a huge problem for athletes, not just because of the initial injury but also the likelihood of re-tears,” Nuñez explains. "We’re talking about a one-year recovery before returning to play a sport." She also points to the high financial costs of surgical intervention as well as the mental anguish and protracted physical rehabilitation.
Nuñez is forging a new framework for ACL tear prevention using virtual reality (VR). She was among 10 finalists invited to Nashville this summer to present this idea at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine annual conference.
After an intense, Shark Tank-style competition, she returned to UMD with a $25,000 prize to develop her winning idea. Nuñez intends to use VR to “gamify prevention,” creating an intervention that’s both fun and interactive to keep participants engaged.
FIFA 11+ is an existing warm-up protocol that can be effective for ACL tear prevention. But it requires additional practice time and one-on-one attention from coaches who are already time-strapped. This makes adherence a challenge.
“Athletes have a high drive. If we make it competitive, we can gain buy-in in the beginning,” she says. “With VR they can get instant feedback in the form of visual cues and auditory stimuli. They can also visualize their improvement compared to others on a leaderboard.”
Nuñez and her students are now preparing a pilot study. After Institutional Review Board approval, they will compare UMD student athletes using the VR intervention with a control group and another group that completes the established FIFA 11+ model.
The VR intervention uses a sports-specific application. Whether an athlete plays soccer, basketball, or football, the program is tailored to their needs and sensitive to the types of moves that might cause a participant to suffer an ACL injury. The app offers real-time feedback on how participants can adjust their body movements in the moment for the safest play.
“There’s no existing research applying VR as a preventive tool,” Nuñez notes. “It’s exciting to think of using VR in this way because the possibilities are endless. Surgeons have been using VR to practice skills—it makes sense to incorporate it into other areas of education.”