strategies for optimizing 'like' operations

A developer is trying to implement some search functionality in an apex application that searches across several different text columns in several different tables. The query is taking entirely too long. The sql looks like:  

WHERE upper(a.keyword) like '%' || upper(:B1) || '%' or

                Upper(b.keyword) like '%' || upper(:B2) ||'%'

 

Is there any way to enable index access with a query like this? Are there design strategies that can make this type of thing performant?  

The system is 10.2.0.3  

Thanks,

chris

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