Long-Term Digital Mobile Phone Use and Cognitive Decline in the Elderly

Research on long-term exposure to electromagnetic fields on cognition is lacking. We investigated the associations between frequent digital mobile phone use and global and domain-specific cognitive changes in older persons, a vulnerable group experiencing age-associated cognitive decline. We assessed 871 non-demented Chinese participants in the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Studies cohort on the frequency of digital mobile phone use, neurocognitive performance and confounding variables at baseline, and neurocognitive performance at the 4-year follow-up. Findings showed that digital mobile phone users were typically self-selected to possess characteristics favoring better cognitive functioning and concomitantly demonstrate better performance on cognitive tasks. There was evidently no significant deleterious effect of digital mobile phone use on cognitive functioning in older people. Findings suggest, however, that digital mobile phone use may have an independent facilitating effect on global and executive functioning. Bioelectromagnetics 33:176–185, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.