Computer question please help me with this asap. thank you?

Hi, me elderly mother accidently did something to her computer and it will not now have any info or icons on the left side of the screen. she is with aol, she can seee everything else on the screeen but things like hr pictures, making cards ect that werer to the left are now not there, is there an easy way i can fix this for her she is not computer savvy and neither am i, and she is really aggitated that she can not see the things togo to them, she said she may have cidked on something that said shortcut or something without meaning to. Please help in easy terms please. Thank you so much!