Effects of Qigong Therapy on Alleviating Symptoms in Cancer Patients: An Overview
5.5 Conclusion
Our overview may serve as a stimulus for future Qigong research to become more rigorous. We recommend that researchers study the CONSORT guidelines (Schulz et al. 2010 ) and that authors of SRs examine the PRISMA guidelines to achieve this goal (PRISMA 2009 ) .
Future RCTs of Qigong for supportive cancer care should adhere to accepted standards of trial methodology. The studies published up to date showed a number of problems that have been noted by other reviews of trials examining the ef fi cacy of Qigong, e.g. expertise of Qigong practitioners, the pluralism of Qigong, fre- quency and duration of treatment, employing validated primary outcome measures and adequate statistical tests, and heterogeneous comparison groups (Chen and Yeung 2002 ; Wayne and Kaptchuk 2008 ) . Future studies should be of high quality with a particular emphasis on designing adequate and appropriate control groups.
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Abstract Quality of life (QoL) is a multidimensional concept that includes physical, psychological, and social aspects which can be regarded as a broad term related to the patient’s subjective evaluation of life as a whole. Patients with cancer often have to deal with symptoms and treatment-related side effects, which have substantial impact on their QoL. Yoga, as a main component of the mindfulness- based stress reduction and one of the most commonly utilized complementary and alternative medicine therapies, has been studied for its feasibility and effects for cancer patients. Increasing evidence indicates that yoga may be bene fi cial for people with cancer in improvements of psychological health and QoL. Nevertheless, given different methodologies of the studies, the variety of QoL measures employed, duration of the interventions, and types of yoga, the effects of yoga on QoL in cancer patients are inconclusive. The exact mechanism of yoga or mindfulness-based stress reduction on QoL is not clear. The researchers have proposed and investi- gated some plausible mechanisms, such as relaxation response, enhancing body awareness, psycho-neuro immunological aspect, and melatonin production. This chapter discusses the evidence for the effectiveness (including safety and adverse effects) of yoga for QoL of cancer patients, includes the underlying mechanisms of yoga on QoL.
K.-Y. Lin • J.-Y. Tsauo (*)
School and Graduate Institute of Physical Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University , 3F, No. 17 Xuzhou Road , Taipei , Taiwan e-mail: [email protected]