The Portuguese version of Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination–Revised (ACE-R) in the diagnosis of subcortical vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of the Portuguese version of Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination–Revised (ACE-R) in detecting and differentiating early stage subcortical vascular dementia (SVD) from early stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Ninety-two subjects (18 SVD patients, 36 AD patients, and 38 healthy controls) were assessed using the ACE-R. Between-group’s differences were evaluated using the Quade’s rank analysis of covariance. The diagnostic accuracy and discriminatory ability of the ACE-R were examined via receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The ACE-R was able to successfully discriminate between patients and healthy subjects. The mean ACE-R total scores differed between SVD and AD patients; there were also significant differences in attention and orientation and in memory measures between the groups. An optimal cut-off of 72/73 was found for the detection of AD (sensitivity: 97%; specificity: 92%) and SVD (sensitivity: 100%; specificity: 92%).

Keywords:

• Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination–Revised
• screening
• dementia
• Alzheimer’s disease
• subcortical vascular dementia

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the participants who volunteered for the study and the institutions that approved this research.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a scholarship [grant number SFRH/68763/2010] granted to the first author by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.