The smartphone in the memory clinic: A study of patient and care partner's utilisation habits.

The sample was a convenience sample of predominantly white individuals, so the rates may not apply to other populations. Smartphone use was self-reported, so it may differ from actual phone use, and memory deficits could affect recall. The patient group mixed people with no cognitive impairment, dementia, movement disorders and other diagnoses, so it is unclear which specific patients would benefit. The online control group was recruited later, was not as old as the patient group, and may be more technologically savvy, so it is not a tightly matched comparison. The study did not test whether training patients to use smartphone cognitive aids improves memory, daily function, or caregiver burden. Refusal rates were not tracked, and non-smartphone owners were omitted from feature analyses, so the findings describe only smartphone owners. The cross-sectional design cannot separate age-related decline from cohort effects.

Microsoft Research donated phones for a later intervention study of smartphones in older adults. That later study was not the focus of this paper, and the donation occurred after data collection. The authors reported no other conflicts of interest.

Do not read this as evidence that smartphone cognitive aids improve memory or daily function. The paper measured self-reported smartphone use in a convenience sample and did not test an intervention or patient outcomes.