2024
Feasibility of Mobile Application-Delivered Mindfulness Meditation for Individuals After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction
International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training, 29(2):95–100
A mobile intervention that pairs mindfulness meditation with personalized physical-activity goals — driven by real-time wearable data — to reduce injury-related fear and help patients return to activity after ACL reconstruction. MAP Lab is building the custom app functionality behind it.
Mind in Motion is a digital health intervention designed to help young people re-engage with physical activity after ACL reconstruction (ACLR), one of the most common surgeries performed in adolescents and young adults. Despite being medically cleared for activity within a year of surgery, many patients remain significantly less active than their peers, often due to a persistent fear of reinjury that creates a self-reinforcing cycle of avoidance.
Mind in Motion addresses this through a smartphone application that combines guided mindfulness meditation (via Headspace) with personalized daily activity goals generated from Oura Ring wearable data. Each day’s goal is automatically calibrated to the participant’s own recent activity history, providing an achievable but progressive target. Brief twice-daily check-ins capture how fear and activity fluctuate in real time throughout the intervention, generating rich longitudinal data to understand how and when mindfulness affects movement behavior. This work is supported by the UVA Digital Technology Core, which maintains the cloud data pipeline, app infrastructure, and real-time dashboards that make the intervention possible.
The project runs in two phases. Phase 1 is the collaborative, iterative development of app functionality: Oura Ring data capture, intrapersonal activity goal setting, and prompts that direct users to mindfulness content. Phase 2 tests the feasibility of deployment and preliminary adherence among the target population across two research sites, via a pilot non-randomized intervention study. Successful development sets up a future randomized controlled trial comparing app-based mindfulness training, activity promotion, their combination, and a waitlist control over 12 months.
Phase 1 app development is underway, with custom functionality being built to capture Oura Ring data, deliver adaptive goals, and surface mindfulness content. The feasibility pilot will generate the preliminary adherence and acceptability data needed to support a larger externally funded efficacy trial.
Browse the full list of active studies and tools the team is building.