Mary Brachaniec

Following her career as a physiotherapist, Mary served in volunteer roles with The Arthritis Society on local, provincial and national levels from 2003 to 2014, and on the CIHR Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis – Knowledge Exchange Task Force from 2004 – 2010.

She was a patient advocate for the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group and Cochrane Consumer Network (2004 to 2014); and a Scientific Committee member for the James Lind Alliance Fibromyalgia Priority Setting Partnership (2016 – 2017).

Mary has since served as a Patient Partner with the CIHR Chronic Pain Network; and the University of Regina Pain in Older Adults research team.

More recently, Mary was on the technical committee for the Health Standards Organization (HSO) Long Term Care Standard published in 2023, and is a current technical committee member for the HSO Palliative Care Standard.

She took on these roles as a former caregiver for her parents during their dementia journeys and more recently, for her late husband, who was in his 70’s during his two-year journey with cancer.

With these experiences in mind, and as Mary will soon reach her own older adult years, she was honoured to join the AGE – WELL Older Adult and Caregiver Advisory Council in May 2025.