Maturitas
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The year 2011 was declared the 'European Year of Volunteering' to recognise the contribution volunteers make to society. Such cross-national events reflect the high profile of volunteering and political imperatives to promote it. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive review of current knowledge (articles published between 2005 and 2011) regarding the role of volunteering in improving older people's quality of life (QoL) and to identify areas requiring further research. ⋯ Due to the study designs and the heterogeneity of the research, causality is difficult to demonstrate and the knowledge the studies bring to the subject is variable. This review shows that volunteering may help to maintain and possibly improve some older adults' quality of life. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of who actually benefits, the social and cultural context of volunteering and its role in reducing health and social inequalities.
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Advances in breast cancer therapies have given rise to a growing number of patient survivors. Nevertheless, these women deal with long-term sequelae that impair their quality of life and that are lacking satisfactory assessment and expeditious management. Importantly, a new era is raising in the oncology field, namely, survivorship. ⋯ Some of these symptoms have even been the objective of randomised controlled trials, but consistent data are missing. The available interventions include pharmacological, behavioural therapies and complementary and alternative medicine approaches and will mostly depend on the type of symptom.