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CHIROPRACTIC
Chiropractic today is one of the largest primary care health professions in Canada with over 6,000 practicing chiropractors. Approximately four and a half million Canadians use the services of a chiropractor each year.
Natural, Non-Invasive Approach to Health Care
Chiropractors practice a drug-free, manual approach to health care that includes patient assessment, diagnosis and treatment. In particular, chiropractors assess patients for disorders related to the spine, pelvis, extremity joints, and their effect on the nervous system. Chiropractors are also trained to recommend therapeutic exercise, to utilize other non-invasive therapies, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counselling.
Adjustment is the most common form of treatment utilized by chiropractors in clinical practice. Also known as spinal manipulative therapy, adjustment is a non-invasive, manual procedure that utilizes the highly refined skills developed through four years of intensive chiropractic education. Adjustment is a carefully controlled procedure delivered by a skilled practitioner to dysfunctional spinal or extremity joints. The primary goal is to decrease pain and restore function by improving areas of reduced movement in the joints and supporting tissues, and decreasing muscle tightness or spasm.
The vast majority of patients who seek chiropractic health care do so for complaints of the musculoskeletal system, most often for conditions affecting the spine such as back pain, neck pain and headaches. Research studies have demonstrated that chiropractic treatment is effective for these conditions.
Legislative bodies across Canada, as well as researchers and governments around the world have conducted extensive reviews of the chiropractic profession and have consistently endorsed chiropractic services.
Primary Care
Chiropractors are regulated, primary care health providers. In cases such as low back pain, chiropractic care may be the preferred method of treatment. Where other medical conditions exist, chiropractic care may support medical treatment by relieving the musculoskeletal aspects associated with the condition. Chiropractic care may also be palliative, providing symptomatic relief of the musculoskeletal disorders associated with chronic conditions.
A Doctor of Chiropractic has undergraduate University education and has also spent four years at an accredited chiropractic institution, receiving more than 4,200 hours of specialized clinical training.
The chiropractic curriculum at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, in Toronto, includes studies in anatomy, radiology, pathology, biomechanics, chiropractic principles, and diagnosis and adjustment techniques.
Chiropractors are one of only five classes of health care professionals in Ontario that are able to use the title Doctor, with its accompanying rights and obligations.
* from the CCA website
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