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What If You Could

Our VisionAn academic institution recognised for creating leaders in spinal health

Our MissionDeliver world class chiropractic education, research and patient care

Our Core ValuesCommunication: We communicate frankly and openly with each other. We encourage a learning environment to stimulate the exchange of information and knowledge. We value and support teamwork, co-operation, and timely communication.

Accountability: Individually and collectively, we take responsibility for our actions and decisions in achieving our goals. We are accountable to ourselves and our colleagues and, in particular, to students, patients and stakeholders whom we serve.

Respect: We respect every individual. We treat people with fairness and dignity. We benefit from the diversity of people and opinions.

Excellence: We are committed to the highest standards of quality, exceptional performance at all times and the pursuit of innovation. We strive to create a positive culture that supports a healthy workplace of choice.

Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College 1

What if you could do something of equal significance?

Such as give expectant moms the gift of comfort. Ease the suffering of people with disc disease. Help an AIDS patient live with greater self esteem and improved quality of life.

All without the side effects of drugs or the downtime of surgery.

The Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) is pushing the boundaries of chiropractic research to achieve this and more. We’re finding new opportunities for

effective treatments that are drug-free, surgery-free, and cost much less. And we’re adding value to medical treatment for those who continue to need it. We want to do more. And with your financial support we can.

Our vision is to be an academic institution recognised for creating leaders in spinal health.

CMCC is a fully accredited leader in chiropractic education. We are also one of the most innovative chiropractic research institutions in North America.

With scientific rigour, uncompromising standards and a commitment to excellence, CMCC is searching for breakthroughs in pain relief and in our understanding of the body’s ability to heal itself.

Over the last twenty years our research has improved the education of tomorrow’s chiropractors and resulted in more effective delivery of patient care. The intent is to expand this research to help improve the quality of life of our community.

Thomas Edison asked:

“What if you could light up the darkness without a flame?”

They said it couldn’t be done. So he did it.

2 Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College

Pickles aside, what pregnant women really crave is comfort.

As their bodies change, many pregnant women experience back, pelvic and leg pain. This restricts mobility, and limits a woman’s ability to enjoy her pregnancy. Often this discomfort continues after the baby is born.

Research indicates that chiropractic treatment can bring relief from pain and may be able to prevent it.

Studies show that exercise and manual therapy can

reduce the frequency and intensity of back and pelvic pain in pregnant and postpartum women. Most health care providers are unaware of these treatments. Since drug therapy is an undesirable option during pregnancy, women continue to suffer unnecessarily. CMCC wants to update obstetricians and prenatal clinics so that more women can benefit from these alternatives. Just as important, we want to better understand the biomechanics of pain and discomfort during pregnancy, and why it

sometimes persists, so that we are better able to prevent and relieve it.

Further studies of pregnant and non- pregnant women would answer important questions.

What muscular changes and ligament and joint strains occur during pregnancy? Why are some women more affected than others? Can we help make pregnancy a more comfortable experience? If yes, which exercise and treatment methods are most effective?

Give expectant moms an unexpected gift


Sometimes a blessed event would be a good night’s sleep.

When pain pills are out of the question, chiropractic can be

the answer.

More research with new and expectant mothers will:

•Determine what muscular changes, ligament and joint strains occur during pregnancy and after birth.

•Reveal why some women are more affected than others.

•Pinpoint which exercise and treatment methods are most effective in alleviating pain.

•Determine if there is a way to prevent pain during pregnancy and after delivery.


Ease disabling disc disease without surgeryCalling disc disease a backache is like comparing apples and oranges.

More than muscular back pain, disc disease involves misalignment of the spine that can affect the entire nervous system.

There are several forms of disc disease, and all may cause acute suffering.This can significantly limit a person’s ability to work, play and lead a normal life.

There is no cure, and traditional health care provides few treatment options.

Patients are faced with taking drugs, which often have unpleasant side effects, or undergoing surgery with potentially serious side effects.

For the properly selected patient, chiropractic can often provide quick relief as well as lasting improvement.

Both clinical experience and scientific studies have shown that chiropractic treatment can reduce the triggers for inflammation, relieve pain, and improve mobility over the short term.

They also show that a program of exercise and lifestyle modification under the supervision of a chiropractor can lead to long term improvement in a patient’s condition.

What’s needed is a better understanding of how to match the appropriate treatment to the specific disc disorder.

CMCC wants to expand our diagnostic studies of patient sub-groups. This will help us determine the most effective rehabilitation treatments for different disc disorders, as well as effective prevention strategies.


Any way you slice it, surgery

isn’t the only treatment

option for disc disease. For

the right patient, chiropractic

brings quick relief and

lasting improvement.

Further research with disc disease patients will:

•Define the mechanisms by which chiropractic treatment can reduce inflammation, relieve pain, and improve mobility.

•Determine the most effective rehabilitation treatments for specific complaints, as well as effective prevention strategies.

•Explore the effect of exercise and lifestyle modification on long term improvement and wellbeing.


AIDS patients can suffer debilitating pain. Both from the disease itself, and from the medications prescribed.

People tell us it feels like myalgia—migrating aches that manifest in different places including the back, arms and legs, abdomen, neck and head.

That kind of pain does more than restrict activity. It leads to fatigue, depression, and loss of self-esteem. It can significantly compromise a person’s quality of life.

Over 20 years of clinical experience suggests chiropractic treatment can reduce pain and improve quality of life for AIDS sufferers.

CMCC is focusing research in this area. Since 1999 we have had an outpatient teaching clinic at the

Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto, which offers integrative care for many people living with HIV/AIDS.

With strong ties to local HIV service agencies, CMCC clinicians and interns provide treatment to manage HIV/AIDS related pain.

We measure patients’ response to chiropractic care in terms of health, quality of life, and patient satisfaction.

We stay current on drug therapies and their side effects that can influence the choice of chiropractic treatment on conditions such as osteoporosis.

As a consequence of this and other joint research, CMCC has submitted abstracts to International AIDS Conferences for more than a decade.

More research needs to be done to see which patients can benefit most, and which treatments work best for specific types of pain.

CMCC has ready access to people with HIV and AIDS. But we have limited financial resources to carry out the research needed to determine the best way chiropractic can help. Findings would be used to optimize treatment, ensuring that patients have better access to appropriate care and receive the most effective treatment at the lowest cost.

The result: better use of resources, faster and better relief, and a better quality of life for people living with AIDS.

Ease the ache of AIDS


Living with AIDS doesn’t have

to mean living in pain. Patients

are experiencing relief through

chiropractic care.

Further research with AIDS patients will:

•Help us understand which patients are most likely to benefit from chiropractic treatment, and which approaches are most effective for specific types of pain.

•Allow better access to appropriate care and ensure patients receive the most effective treatment at the lowest cost.

• Allow faster and better relief, a better quality of life, and more efficient use of health care resources.


Chiropractors are now on staff at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

CMCC has satellite clinics in health centres around Toronto. But this marks the first time in Canada that chiropractors have been integrated in an acute care teaching hospital.

Together, St. Michael’s Hospital and CMCC have created an outpatient teaching clinic for musculoskeletal conditions (those that focus on the relationship between the spine, other bones, and muscles). Chiropractors are collaborating with physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, social workers, and dietitians.

Patients can access all the care they need in one place, saving time, money and stress. Team members combine their knowledge, resources and skills to ensure continuity of care.

What’s more, because they can spread the workload, there is less waiting for patients in pain, less pressure for overworked physicians, and fewer visits to overburdened hospital emergency rooms.

This innovative model of care is now being accepted in the health care world.

It has been named an International Best Practice by the Ontario Hospital Association and

the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Health agencies in other provinces, the U.S. and Australia have inquired about the benefits and implementation.

CMCC requires funding to continue pioneering work in models of health care. These studies could result in improved patient access to care, optimized quality and comprehensiveness of that care, and more effective use of resources.

Take the wait out of waiting rooms


“The doctor will see you now.”

A health care team that includes

chiropractic can mean less waiting

and more effective use of resources.

Expanding integrated health care will:

•Spread the workload to reduce waiting time for patients in pain.

•Help to relieve the burden on overworked physicians and hospital emergency rooms.

• Improve patient access to care and comprehensiveness of that care.

•Help to make health care more economical.


Diagnostic studies to understand where pain comes from.

CMCC is working with scientists from McMaster University to evaluate changes in sensation that can occur in the arms and legs with inflammation of spinal nerve roots. This will help us understand the effects of inflamed nerves and guide studies in diagnosis.

Along with researchers from the University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital, CMCC has been involved in studies of posterior pelvic joint pain. These have given us a better understanding of the use of x-ray to diagnose and manage lower back (sacroiliac) pain.

Treatment studies to ensure safer and better results.

CMCC is working with other researchers from McMaster University to examine new ways of controlling chronic pain using innovative modes of electrical stimulation.

The result could be an inexpensive, home based method to reduce pain and accelerate rehabilitation.

Researchers from Columbia University and the University of Vermont have joined with CMCC to evaluate the use of ultrasound imaging to understand the strain that tissues undergo during activity and manual treatments.

This will help improve the effectiveness of treatment to relieve pain.

Researchers from CMCC and New York Chiropractic College are working to create

a biomechanical model of low back adjustment to study how to improve the safety and effectiveness of treatment.

CMCC is collaborating with researchers from National University of Health Sciences in Illinois on a funding proposal to extend earlier CMCC studies on how to localize treatment effects using chiropractic adjustment.

Research to see what else chiropractic can do.

CMCC, along with a host of interdisciplinary sponsors, has joined with researchers from the University of North Texas to convene an international, integrated panel of experts. The panel will set research priorities for testing the effects of manual treatment.

Meet our partners in innovation

CMCC is working with its research partners

to improve chiropractic teaching and

technique, and patient health.



What if you could

…improve the health of your community?

If the innovations we’ve talked about are possible, what else might chiropractic do? How much could it improve quality of life – for the ill and injured, for the elderly, for all of us? Whatever the possibilities, chiropractic’s highly trained professionals and effective, non-invasive treatments have earned their place on the primary health care team. It’s been shown that chiropractic can speed treatment and relief for people who are suffering, while alleviating pressures on the health care system.

Clinical experience suggests chiropractic can do even more. Case based experience is just the beginning. The science behind effective

treatment must be understood and tested, to the same uncompromising standards used for all CMCC research.

What else will research tell us?

At CMCC, our vision is to excel in chiropractic education and research to contribute to the health of our communities. If you share this vision, we invite you to share the financial commitment.

For all we do, CMCC receives no direct government funding, and relies on membership, tuition, and donations for support.

Our financial support comes from people like you, who know the value of chiropractic, and who

have the wisdom and foresight to understand its enormous potential.

If ever there was a unique opportunity to make a difference, this is it.

Join CMCC by providing financial support to research, education, patient care and our students. Together, let’s shed light on what chiropractic can do.

CMCC offers several levels of recognition, including a variety of naming opportunities. Please contact us for more information.

[email protected]: 416 482 2340Toll free: 1 800 669 2959Fax: 416 482 3629

Charitable Registration Number:10807 5508 RR 0001


“I knew CMCC would be good,

but I wasn’t prepared for

how good. CMCC’s quality is

evident even in the level of

discussion in the hallways.”Jay Triano, DC, PhD, FCCS(C) Dean of Graduate Education and Research

Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College6100 Leslie StreetToronto ON M2H 3J1 Telephone: 416 482 2340Toll Free: 1 800 669 2959Fax: 416 482 3629 www.cmcc.ca

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