Aim:To analyze the risks of accidents in older adults caused by the use of cell phone while walking.Design: A systematic review was performed with manuscripts published between the years 2000 and 2021. The search was conducted in which the terms "cell phone", "walking", "balance", and "risks of falls" were confronted by the boolean operators "and", "or", and "not", in articles published in the National Library of Medicine citation database (MEDLINE/NLM®). Two researchers screened the articles independently and included manuscripts that addressed the impact of cell phone use on gait, balance and risk of falls in older adults. Studies were compared in terms of sample size, clinical profile of the participants, assessments, inferential analyses, and outcome.Results: Primary analysis with the term "cell phone" identified 23,060 articles published in journals linked to MEDLINE/NLM®. The eligibility criteria reduced the number of articles to 95, 16 of them involving older adults. The sample size of the studies varied between 16 to 408 participants. The studies assessed mainly subjects' balance and gait. The comparisons involved tasks with and without the use of cell phone. Most of the statistical analyses used paired tests (Student t-tests or repeated measure ANOVAs), correlations and regressions. The main outcomes showed that performing dual tasks decrease gait speed and increase imbalance in older adults.
Conclusion:This systematic review confirm the risks of older adults in using cell phones while walking. The number of manuscripts addressing this topic is still low, highlighting the need of further studies assessing the impact of cell phone use simultaneous to a walking task.