Help - Stress Related Hair Loss

Hi.
I'm wondering if anyone on here can help or give some advice.

My best friend started a new job about a year ago, after graduating and then working at home for her Dad in his accounting business. Towards the end of last year, she noticed that she was losing her hair, in a small patch just above her right ear.

I no longer live in the area, but have been contacted by another best friend in our group, because they are worried about her.

The patch, around New Year time was only about an inch in diameter, and it seems in the last month, it has got worse, with more hair loss surrounding tis patch, with a small clump of hair in the middle, and moving up towards her centra parting and again on the other side of her head.

She has visited her normal GP who prescripbed some sort of steriod cream for it, and also went to her Chinese doctor who prescribed Zinc tablets for her to take. I know she doesn't want to use the GP prescribed drugs, and has only been taking the Zinc tablets - for quite a while now - but the hair loss seems to be getting worse, not better.

She's recently been promoted at work, which is causing her stress, and also means she's working 6 days a week,(instead of dealing with 4 or 5 accounts, she now has to deal with over 100 accounts) and also on Sunday's to help her father out with his own business too.
On top of this, she's also expected to do the cooking and cleaning at home after work an d at weekends(her parents do none of this, and her middle borther and elder sister no longer live at home, leaving her lazy younger brother to do nothing to help). She won't go out anymore, or when she does she's turning up late with excuses of dinner taking too long to do or clean up, because she's so concerned about her hair and it being visible that she's spending hours infront of the mirror trying to cover it up. She even asked her brother to take a picture of what it looked like because she cannot see because of t's positioning on her head - and when she saw the photo it upset her a lot.

She needs to take time off work, which I know she has a week away planned - but I don't think that's long enough.

I'm going home to see her this weekend, as I'm the one person she can open up to normally, but am unsure of how to approach the subject, and no very little about stress related hair loss or options available to her.

Myself and another freind think she needs to try and separate herself from the chores at home and her demanding family for a while - because of the pressure they put on her at home. Her sister also tells her that her hair problem is getting better, when it's not.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Or had to help someone who is going through it - what wored for you and how would you suggest I go about helping her with this problem? Any remidies tried and tested that worked?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Larry x