Complementary and alternative therapies: do they improve quality of life for women with breast cancer?

Abstract

Background: The growing incidence of breast cancer in women in the UK has inevitably resulted in the expansion of the roles of health care practitioners in breast cancer care. As women with a diagnosis of this form of cancer are increasingly turning to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with a view, amongst others, to improve their quality of life, health care professionals are beginning to question if there is a place for it in their practice. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to review and critically appraise the current research literature to investigate if complementary and alternative therapies improve quality of life in women with breast cancer. Major findings: Following a detailed search of nine electronic databases (AMED, EMBASE, Medline, British Nursing Index, PsychINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, OTDBase and Google Scholar) between the years 2000 and 2010, eight relevant studies were identified. Three of these studies focused on CAM as a whole, three on yoga, one on progressive muscle relaxation training and guided imagery and one on therapeutic massage. Out of the eight studies, six concluded that complementary and alternative therapies improved quality of life in women with breast cancer. The remaining two studies presented somewhat equivocal findings; however, they did identify scope for future research. Despite this, study limitations were identified across the studies and so caution should be exercised when generalizing the results. Conclusion: The combined findings of this literature review indicate that there is great potential for complementary and alternative therapies to be increasingly integrated into clinical practice within breast cancer services. However, prior to this, further high quality research is required, including larger and longer term studies.

Quality of Life and Breast Cancer: How Can Mind–Body Exercise Therapies Help? An Overview Study

“…Lee et al [ 17 ], Pan et al [ 18 ], Pan et al [ 19 ] and Zhang et al [ 20 ] included participants who were undergoing cancer treatment. The five remaining studies researched the effects of interventions both during and after treatment [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. The populations in the original studies were mainly women with breast cancer, aged 18 to 70 years.…”

“…Concerning mind–body interventions, eight of the eleven review studies included yoga [ 15 , 16 , 18 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ], and in five of these, yoga was tested as a sole mind–body therapy [ 18 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Tai chi chuan was studied in three of the reviews.…”

“…Qigong was studied in two reviews. Shneerson et al [ 15 ] included one qigong intervention along with four yoga interventions, while Bleakely and Stinson [ 21 ] reported from one qigong intervention and four yoga interventions.…”

“…Eight of the included reviews were characterized as systematic [ 15 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 24 ], and six of these were meta-analyses aiming at studying effects from complementary therapies on patient outcomes of quality of life (QoL) [ 15 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 23 ]. Eight articles reviewed only randomized controlled designs [ 15 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ], while three also included studies with other quantitative designs [ 16 , 17 , 25 ]. One of the randomized, controlled trials (RCT) in Levine and Balk [ 25 ] also comprised qualitative data collection.…”

Effects of occupational therapy on quality of life of patients with metastatic prostate cancer

“…There are a few studies that report the positive effects of OT on daily living activities in various cancer populations. 8 - 10 , 30 The effects of advanced OT interventions on QoL in individuals with cancer is still limited. This study tested the extent to which a 12-week OT-CBSM intervention improved perceived activity performance and satisfaction as evidenced by occupational performance and QoL among the participants treated for MPC.…”