Comparative diagnostic accuracy of ACE-III and MoCA for detecting mild cognitive impairment

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2019 Sep 13:15:2647-2653. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S212328. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to validate the reliability of the Chinese version of Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) for detecting mild cognitive impairment. Furthermore, the present study compares the diagnostic accuracy of ACE-III with that of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).

Methods: One hundred and twenty patients with MCI and 136 healthy controls were included in the study. All patients were evaluated by the Chinese version of ACE-III, MoCA and MMSE.

Results: Subjects in the control group showed better performance in ACE-III total score and its subdomain scores than those in the MCI group. There was a significantly positive correlation between ACE-III total score and MoCA score. Meanwhile, there was also a significantly positive correlation between ACE-III total score and MMSE score. For ACE-III total score, a cut-off point of 85 yielded a sensitivity of 97.3% and a specificity of 90.7%. The AUC for ACE-III total score was 0.978. For MoCA, a cut-off point of 23 yielded a sensitivity of 86.5% and a specificity of 97.7%. The AUC for MoCA was 0.961. There were no significant differences in diagnostic accuracy between ACE-III and MoCA.

Conclusion: The present findings support that both ACE-III and MoCA are useful for detecting MCI in early stages.

Keywords: Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III; Chinese; Montreal Cognitive Assessment; cognitive screening; mild cognitive impairment.