Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Cell Phone”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

UMTS base station-like exposure, well-being, and cognitive performance.

BACKGROUND: Radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF EMF) of mobile communication systems are widespread in the living environment, yet their effects on humans are uncertain despite a growing body of literature. OBJECTIVES: We investigated the influence of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) base station-like signal on well-being and cognitive performance in subjects with and without self-reported sensitivity to RF EMF. METHODS: We performed a controlled exposure experiment (45 min at an electric field strength of 0, 1, or 10 V/m, incident with a polarization of 45 degrees from the left back side of the subject, weekly intervals) in a randomized, double-blind crossover design. A total of 117 healthy subjects (33 self-reported sensitive, 84 nonsensitive subjects) participated in the study. We assessed well-being, perceived field strength, and cognitive performance with questionnaires and cognitive tasks and conducted statistical analyses using linear mixed models. Organ-specific and brain tissue-specific dosimetry including uncertainty and variation analysis was performed. RESULTS: In both groups, well-being and perceived field strength were not associated with actual exposure levels. We observed no consistent condition-induced changes in cognitive performance except for two marginal effects. At 10 V/m we observed a slight effect on speed in one of six tasks in the sensitive subjects and an effect on accuracy in another task in nonsensitive subjects. Both effects disappeared after multiple end point adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to a recent Dutch study, we could not confirm a short-term effect of UMTS base station-like exposure on well-being. The reported effects on brain functioning were marginal and may have occurred by chance. Peak spatial absorption in brain tissue was considerably smaller than during use of a mobile phone. No conclusions can be drawn regarding short-term effects of cell phone exposure or the effects of long-term base station-like exposure on human health.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Role of mobile phones in motor vehicle crashes resulting in hospital attendance: a case-crossover study.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the effect of drivers' use of mobile (cell) phones on road safety. DESIGN: A case-crossover study. SETTING: Perth, Western Australia. PARTICIPANTS: 456 drivers aged > or = 17 years who owned or used mobile phones and had been involved in road crashes necessitating hospital attendance between April 2002 and July 2004. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Driver's use of mobile phone at estimated time of crash and on trips at the same time of day in the week before the crash. Interviews with drivers in hospital and phone company's records of phone use. RESULTS: Driver's use of a mobile phone up to 10 minutes before a crash was associated with a fourfold increased likelihood of crashing (odds ratio 4.1, 95% confidence interval 2.2 to 7.7, P < 0.001). Risk was raised irrespective of whether or not a hands-free device was used (hands-free: 3.8, 1.8 to 8.0, P < 0.001; hand held: 4.9, 1.6 to 15.5, P = 0.003). Increased risk was similar in men and women and in drivers aged > or = 30 and < 30 years. A third (n = 21) of calls before crashes and on trips during the previous week were reportedly on hand held phones. CONCLUSIONS: When drivers use a mobile phone there is an increased likelihood of a crash resulting in injury. Using a hands-free phone is not any safer.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Brain cancer with induction periods of less than 10 years in young military radar workers.

The authors have reported on 5 young patients who had brain tumors that appeared within 10 yr of initial occupational exposures to radar. Four of the patients were less than 30 yr of age when the diagnoses were initially made. Brief induction periods that follow high exposures in individual sentinel patients are a recognized indicator of impending group risk, and these periods call attention to the need for precautionary measures. Similarly, reports of short induction periods for brain cancer on the side of the head in which there has been prior use of cell phones may also indicate increased risk.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Effects of high-frequency electromagnetic fields on human EEG: a brain mapping study.

Cell phones emitting pulsed high-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) may affect the human brain, but there are inconsistent results concerning their effects on electroencephalogram (EEG). We used a 16-channel telemetric electroencephalograph (ExpertTM), to record EEG changes during exposure of human skull to EMF emitted by a mobile phone. Spatial distribution of EMF was especially concentrated around the ipsilateral eye adjacent to the basal surface of the brain. Traditional EEG was full of noises during operation of a cellular phone. Using a telemetric electroencephalograph (ExpertTM) in awake subjects, all the noise was eliminated, and EEG showed interesting changes: after a period of 10-15 s there was no visible change, the spectrum median frequency increased in areas close to antenna; after 20-40 s, a slow-wave activity (2.5-6.0 Hz) appeared in the contralateral frontal and temporal areas. These slow waves lasting for about one second repeated every 15-20 s at the same recording electrodes. After turning off the mobile phone, slow-wave activity progressively disappeared; local changes such as increased median frequency decreased and disappeared after 15-20 min. We observed similar changes in children, but the slow-waves with higher amplitude appeared earlier in children (10-20 s) than adults, and their frequency was lower (1.0-2.5 Hz) with longer duration and shorter intervals. The results suggested that cellular phones may reversibly influence the human brain, inducing abnormal slow waves in EEG of awake persons.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Cellular telephones and effects on the brain: the head as an antenna and brain tissue as a radio receiver.

Headache and other neuropsychological symptoms occur in users of cellular telephones, and controversy exists concerning risks for brain cancer. We hypothesize these effects result from the head serving as an antenna and brain tissue as a radio receiver. The frequencies for transmission and reception by cellular telephones, about 900 MHz for analog and 1800 MHz for digital transmission, have wavelengths of 33-35 and 16-17 cm, respectively. Human heads are oval in shape with a short axis about 16 to 17 cm in length. Near the ear there will be a cross-section in the head with an axis half the wavelength of RF/MW transmissions of 900 MHz and equal to the wavelength of RF/MW transmissions at 1800 MHz. Therefore, the human head can serve as a lossy resonator for the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the cellular telephone, absorbing much of the energy specifically from these wavelengths. Brain cells and tissues demodulate the cell-phone's audio frequencies from the radio frequency carrier. Low audio frequencies in the ranges of alpha and beta waves affect these waves and thereby influence brain function. These effects state the case for a precautionary policy.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed2005

Wireless technology infrastructures for authentication of patients: PKI that rings.

As the public interest in consumer-driven electronic health care applications rises, so do concerns about the privacy and security of these applications. Achieving a balance between providing the necessary security while promoting user acceptance is a major obstacle in large-scale deployment of applications such as personal health records (PHRs). Robust and reliable forms of authentication are needed for PHRs, as the record will often contain sensitive and protected health information, including the patient's own annotations. Since the health care industry per se is unlikely to succeed at single-handedly developing and deploying a large scale, national authentication infrastructure, it makes sense to leverage existing hardware, software, and networks. This report proposes a new model for authentication of users to health care information applications, leveraging wireless mobile devices. Cell phones are widely distributed, have high user acceptance, and offer advanced security protocols. The authors propose harnessing this technology for the strong authentication of individuals by creating a registration authority and an authentication service, and examine the problems and promise of such a system.

Cell Phone↗
PubMedDate not supplied

SMS reminders in the UK national health service: an evaluation of its impact on "no-shows" at hospital out-patient clinics.

The ownership of cell phones and use of short message service (SMS) are sufficiently common in the United Kingdom to be exploited by health services providers. The study evaluates their use to reduce nonattendance at out-patient clinics. The impact is modest, but so also is the cost, about 7.50 pounds (13.13 dollars, 10.88 euros) per "no-show" avoided.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Integrated electronic monitoring systems could revolutionize care for patients with cognitive impairment.

Dementia and other causes of functional disability can create considerable burdens for families and society as a whole, but it may be possible to partially alleviate this strain through technical innovations that replace some functions of human caregivers. This article proposes the hypothesis that cell phones, internet communication and global positioning satellite receivers could be integrated into computer based care-giving systems to provide orientation and safety cues, daily reminders of activities, protection against wandering and direct links to medical assistance in case of incapacitation. Hypothetical case histories describe assistance systems for a patient with moderate Alzheimer's disease living at home, a patient in a nursing home with more advanced dementia and incontinence, an epileptic with intermittent transient postictal amnesia, and a head injury survivor with explosive disorder.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Vestibular schwannoma, tinnitus and cellular telephones.

Cases with tinnitus after using analogue cellular telephones are presented. An increased odds ratio of 3.45, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.77-6.76, was found for vestibular schwannoma (VS) associated with the use of analogue cell phones. During the time period 1960-1998, the age-standardized incidence of VS in Sweden significantly increased yearly by +2.53% (CI 1.71-3.35). A significant increase in the incidence of VS was only found for the latter of the two time periods 1960-1979 and 1980-1998. For all other brain tumors taken together, the incidence significantly increased yearly by +0.80% (CI 0.59-1.02) for the time period 1960-1998, although the increase was only significant for benign tumors other than VS during 1960-1979.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Concerns, dispositions and behaviors of aggressive drivers: what do self-identified aggressive drivers believe about traffic safety?

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this investigation was to identify beliefs, driving personality dispositions, and behaviors that distinguish self-defined aggressive drivers from non-aggressive drivers. METHOD: Telephone surveys were used to identify self-reported aggressive drivers (n=305) who were compared to non-aggressive drivers (n=1,715) concerning their beliefs, driving behaviors, and self-described driving dispositions. RESULTS: Aggressive drivers, compared to non-aggressive drivers, were less concerned about speeding, aggressive driving, and cell phone use while driving, yet were more likely to have had an encounter with another aggressive driver. They were also more likely to report that they had driven when they knew they had too much to drink, yet they felt less likely that they would be stopped by the police. CONCLUSION: Aggressive drivers display many dispositions that define them as high risk drivers and public information/motivational campaigns alone will likely be ineffective with this group of drivers. Strategies that combine visible enforcement with widespread publicity campaigns appear to be necessary.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Wireless communication in health care: who will win the right to send data boldly where no data has gone before?

Increasingly, health care professionals will need to retrieve, store, share, and send data using several types of wireless devices. These devices include personal digital assistants, laptops, Web tablets, cell phones, and clothing that monitor heart rate and blood pressure. Regardless of the device, several standards will vie for the right to provide the wireless communications link between the health care professional and the wired data resources located within a health care organization. This article identifies the top three technologies in the wireless communications field: Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), Mobile Communications, and Bluetooth; breaks down each according to its strengths and weaknesses; and makes recommendations for their use by health care professionals located inside and outside a health care facility. Where appropriate the discussion includes an explication of how a specific technology can be made secure from hackers and other security breeches.

Cell Phone↗
PubMed2003

Evaluating the reliability of automated collision notification systems.

The use of an automated collision notification (ACN) device in vehicles can greatly reduce the time between crash occurrence and notification of emergency medical services (EMSs). Most ACN devices rely on cellular technology to report important crash information to the proper authorities. The objective of this study was to examine the ability of the existing western New York cellular analog system to support ACN systems. The first task was to develop a model predicting the probability of successfully completing an emergency ACN call at attenuated levels of received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a measurement of the bond between cell phone and tower. Then, empirical estimates were made of the time necessary for call completion at given levels of the RSSI. The RSSI is sampled at locations throughout Erie County, New York, and this information is used to determine the probability of successful call completion for different locations within the county. This model was then applied to historic data for selected past crashes. Finally, the findings were compared with real-world crash data obtained from the ACN Field Operational Test program, where 750 ACN devices were installed in cars and their performance examined over time. An interpolated map of the sampled RSSI values suggests that cellular coverage in Erie County is adequate to support the automated collision network technology. The models and techniques described here are applicable to other areas and regions of the country.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2004

Driver distraction from a control theory perspective.

Distraction from cell phones, navigation systems, information/entertainment systems, and other driver-interactive devices now finding their way into the highway vehicles is a serious national safety concern. However, driver distraction is neither well defined nor well understood. In an effort to bring some better definition to the problem, a framework is proposed based on the ideas of control theory. Loci and causes of distraction are represented as disturbances to various functional elements of a control loop involving driver intending (goal setting), sensing, deciding on control response, dynamics of the vehicle, and human body activation and energetics. It is argued that activation should be classed separately from the other functions. Attention switching from environmental observation/control to internal device manipulation is modeled as sampled-data control. Also fit within the control framework are mental modeling and anticipation of events in the driver's preview. The control framework is shown to suggest some salient research questions and experiments. Actual or potential applications of this research include a refined understanding of driver distraction and better modeling and prediction of driving performance as a function of vehicle and highway design.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2006

Wireless Holter transmission in suspected dysrhythmias.

BACKGROUND: In patients with a history of possible dysrhythmias, documentation of an episode is mandatory before any form of treatment is given. Holter recordings with wireless telemetry offer the possibility of continuously recording electrocardiograms for days or even weeks with instantaneous analysis of the data in the physician's office. METHODS: Thirty-seven patients (20 male; median age, 8.4 years; range, 0.1-22 years), were investigated by using a telemetric Holter system (M120, Schiller, Switzerland), that is, intermittent transmission of the electrocardiographic data to a remote server using cell phone frequencies, with a median duration of the recordings of 6.5 days (range 1-42 days). RESULTS: Recording quality was sufficient in all patients. Problems were related to electrode disconnections only, which were adjusted by contacting the patients. Twenty-eight of 37 recordings showed decisive findings. Of the 28 patients, no treatment was indicated in 16 patients, as subjective symptoms did not correlate with dysrhythmias; psychotherapy was indicated in 2 patients; antiarrhythmic medication was initiated or intensified in 5 patients; radiofrequency ablation was successfully performed in 5 patients; and 1 patient received an ICD. In 6 of 9 patients with negative Holter findings, a loop recorder implantation (Medtronic, Minneapolis, Minn) was indicated. In 1 patient, no dysrhythmias were recorded; however, when invasively investigated, ventricular tachycardia was detected and successfully treated by radiofrequency ablation. In 2 patients, no decision has been made to date. CONCLUSIONS: Wireless Holter recordings are useful in detecting dysrhythmias with rare occurrence, are less expensive and less invasive compared with implantable loop recorders, and offer the patient rather wide geographic ranges with sufficient signal quality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Failed appointments in an orthodontic clinic.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to retest the hypotheses of Reekie and Devlin (1998) by conducting a similar randomized controlled trial in an orthodontic clinic in the Netherlands. It was hypothesized that a reminder would reduce the failed attendance rate and that the form of the reminder would be irrelevant. METHODS: All patients with appointments in the orthodontic clinic at the Academic Centre of Dentistry Amsterdam during a 3-week period were divided into 4 groups. Three groups received a reminder 1 day before the appointment, either by telephone, mail, or short message service (SMS, a service used to send and receive short text messages to and from cell phones). A control group did not receive a reminder. In a follow-up study, random subsamples in each group were interviewed by telephone. Subjects were asked how they felt about receiving a reminder and which reminder they preferred. RESULTS: The hypothesis that a reminder would reduce the failed attendance rate was not confirmed. Also, no differences were found between the 4 conditions, indicating that the form of the reminder is irrelevant. However, most of the interviewed participants felt positive or very positive about receiving a reminder. There was a significant preference for a reminder by mail (56.3%), followed by a telephone reminder (26.0%) and a reminder by SMS (17.7%). No less than 20% of the interviewed participants felt negative or very negative about the reminders and considered them to be a waste of time and money. CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis that reminders are useful in the prevention of failed appointments was not confirmed. This study underlines the importance of replication studies. It demonstrates that every research result, whether it is generated by evidence-based or tradition-based research, should be interpreted with care and should be replicated in other studies before the results can be generalized.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Insights into electromagnetic interaction mechanisms.

Low frequency (< 300 Hz) electromagnetic (EM) fields induce biological changes that include effects ranging from increased enzyme reaction rates to increased transcript levels for specific genes. The induction of stress gene HSP70 expression by exposure to EM fields provides insight into how EM fields interact with cells and tissues. Insights into the mechanism(s) are also provided by examination of the interaction of EM fields with moving charges and their influence on enzyme reaction rates in cell-free systems. Biological studies with in vitro model systems have focused, in general, on the nature of the signal transduction pathways involved in response to EM fields. It is likely, however, that EM fields also interact directly with electrons in DNA to stimulate biosynthesis. Identification of an EM field-sensitive DNA sequence in the heat shock 70 (HSP70) promoter, points to the application of EM fields in two biomedical applications: cytoprotection and gene therapy. EM field induction of the stress protein hsp70 may also provide a useful biomarker for establishing a science-based safety standard for the design of cell phones and their transmission towers.

Animals↗