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

Abstract

Breast cancer survivors experience extensive treatments, threatening their quality of life. Complementary therapies used as a supplement to cancer treatment may control symptoms, enhance quality of life, and contribute to overall patient care. Mind–body exercise therapies might motivate cancer survivors to exercise, and assist them in regaining health. The purpose of this overview study is to study benefits from mind–body exercise of yoga, tai chi chuan and qigong upon quality of life in breast cancer populations. A systematic overview of reviews was applied. Literature search in five electronic databases and in reference lists was performed during April 2017. In addition, experts in the field were consulted. Of 38 identified titles, 11 review articles, including six meta-analyses were found eligible for review. Methodological quality was high for the majority of quality domains. Yoga, the most studied mind–body therapy, was found to benefit breast cancer patients’ psychological quality of life, while less support was established concerning physical quality of life elements. The evidence of improvements of quality of life from tai chi chuan and qigong remains unclear. Breast cancer survivors’ experiences of psychological and social well-being may be enhanced by practicing yoga.

Health-related quality of life in breast cancer patients: review of reviews from 2008 to 2018

“…In the following sections we highlighted a number of topics relevant to supportive care in breast cancer patients [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72]. The findings are summarized in Table 3.…”

“…Reviews on the effect of CAM on symptoms showed a significant improvement in symptoms [63]. One study of reviewing publications targeted mind-body exercise including yoga, Tai Chi chuan, and qigong found that breast cancer patients' psychological quality of life benefited from yoga, while physical elements of quality of life were not supported [68]. Yoga is the most studied mind-body therapy.…”

Application of Oil-in-Water Nanoemulsion Carrying Size-Defined Gold Nanoparticles Synthesized by Non-thermal Plasma for the Human Breast Cancer Cell Lines Migration and Apoptosis

“…In these systems, direct current atmospheric pressure glow discharge (dc-APGD) was operated between the surface of a flowing liquid anode (FLA) [32,33] or a flowing liquid cathode (FLC) [31][32][33][34] and a nozzle Ar jet [31,32,34] or a sharpened pin-type electrode (with no discharge gas required, completely in the open-to-air atmosphere) [33]. By appropriately adjusting the working parameters of the dc-APGD systems, including the discharge current [31,33], the AuNPs precursor solution flow rate [40,42], and the flow rate of the jet-supporting gas [31], it was possible to find the operating parameters under which the size-defined AuNPs were reproducibly produced. In addition, the obtained AuNPs were stabilized by the addition of a natural biopolymer, i.e., gelatin [31,32,34], or a synthetic polymer, i.e., polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) [34] or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) [34], to the precursor solutions or just by the electrostatical repulsions of the AuNPs [33].…”

“…Besides the application of the new therapies, decreasing the incidence of the breast cancer and the number of the related deaths [5], there are many additional issues that must be overcome. It includes the improvement of the quality of live of the breast cancer patients by minimizing the side effects of the applied therapies [5,42]. A special attention has lately been paid to nanotechnology, which seems nowadays to be one of the most promising research fields that may help to overcome the drawbacks related to the side effects of the convention cancer therapies and improve the quality of live as well [5].…”

Safety of Qigong

“…Several complementary medical therapies with some similarities to Qigong are practiced in hospitals in the west and are paid for by insurance. In recent years, existing systematic reviews have examined the clinical evidence of the beneficial effects of Qigong exercise on different medical conditions, such as tumor and cancer, [ 25 – 27 ] hypertension, [ 2 , 28 , 29 ] diabetes mellitus, [ 30 – 32 ] obesity, [ 33 , 34 ] chronic heart diseases, [ 35 , 36 ] Parkinson's disease, [ 37 – 39 ] dementia, [ 40 , 41 ] chronic fatigue syndrome, [ 42 – 44 ] menopause syndrome, [ 45 , 46 ] insomnia, [ 47 – 49 ] lower back pain, [ 50 – 52 ] chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, [ 53 – 55 ] fibromyalgia, [ 56 – 58 ] metabolic disease, [ 20 , 59 ] osteoarthritis, [ 60 – 62 ] mental disease, [ 14 , 19 , 63 , 64 ] and so on.…”