Professor Gary Hooper

Professional interests

• Knee injuries and Joint Replacement
• Rehabilitation following surgery
• Impact of training on outcomes for patients
• Regenerative medicine in Orthopaedics
• Assessing outcomes following joint replacement

Research interests

Gary's research interests include clinical trials investigating improving outcomes after joint replacement and studies involving bone metabolism and musculoskeletal bioengineering.

Clinical outcomes include:

• The wear of highly cross-linked polyethylene in hip replacement
• Metal ion production in hard-on-hard bearing surfaces
• Long term outcome of unicompartmental knee replacement
• Acoustic monitoring of failing joint replacements
• The use of larger femoral heads in hip replacement
• The implications of increased BMI on the outcome
• Bone density changes around implants
• New Zealand Joint Registry outcomes

He also studies re-integration into society in multiple trauma patients with special emphasis on earthquake victims.

Gary's bone metabolism studies include bone density changes adjacent to uncemented hip and knee replacements and the implications this has for clinical practice.

He is also studying how to improve fracture healing rates following neck of femur and tibial shaft fracture.

Gary's biomechanical investigations include the building and production of cartilage scaffolds for the treatment of articular cartilage defects and developing titanium implants to fill bone deficits.