How to help?

How to help someone you know for a long time (but have been distanced after a period) when he/she has been struggling with a particular problem for almost a year?

You don't think you can do anything to help relieve their pain. Even if you try, you won't know whether or not it's helping. So how do we "help" then? So that's the frustrating bit. Then again, because you have not been in contact for a while now, you think you can just leave him/her to their own device. Tsk, but that's not what friends are for right.

SO HOW. How do we HELP.

H-E-L-P.

I'm sure everyone has been in this position once before. How did you guys manage to get through that and help?