YOUR PHONE MAY DETECT FIRST SIGNS OF DEMENTIA

How you use your cell phone could reveal early symptoms of dementia, according to researchers at Oxford University.

They contend that the length of your text messages and the speed with which you find a phone number can be important warning signs and believe that using artificial intelligence to monitor smartphone usage will identify abnormalities long before doctors can.

“It can record how quick you are when you are looking for somebody’s name; how good you are at picking up the words that you need in a text message; how long are your text messages? What is the vocabulary that you use? That, we know, is one of the first things to go in Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Ivan Koychev, a clinical lecturer in old age.