Validation of the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) in Alzheimer’s disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

A clinical tool for detecting early signs of cognitive degeneracy in the elderly population can help clinicians to identify dementia in the early stages. This research was aimed to validate the Persian version of Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III) in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in a group of Iranian population. A total of 135 subjects (AD= 30, MCI=30 and 75 normal control) that met inclusion criteria participated in the study. All patients were diagnosed by neurologist using neuroimaging tools and routine clinical examination. Data were analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, Pearson’s correlation analysis and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). ACE-III at cut-off point of 75 showed 99% sensitivity and 95% specificity in discriminating AD from the normal group and at cut-off point of 82 showed 92% sensitivity and 90% specificity in discriminating MCI from normal controls. Test-retest reliability showed a correlation of 0.94 for both AD and MCI. Internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97. A significant difference was seen between AD and control group on total score and all ACE-III components (attention, memory, language, verbal fluency and visuospatial function). MCI group was differed from control group on memory and visiouspatial components. The Persian version of ACE-III is a reliable and useful cognitive screening tool for diagnosis of dementia and has a high specificity.