Validation study of the Italian Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination Revised in a young-old and old-old population

AIMS: The main aims of the study were the translation and the subsequent validation in Italian of the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R), and the evaluation of its usefulness in discriminating cognitively normal subjects from patients with mild dementia in an elderly population. METHODS: The ACE-R was translated and adapted into Italian. The Italian ACE-R was administered to a group of 179 elderly subjects (72 cognitively healthy and 107 subjects with mild dementia, mean age 75.4±6.4 years). The group was stratified into two subsamples according to age, i.e. a young-old (<75 years) and an old-old (≥75 years) group, in order to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the test in detecting dementia in different age strata of elderly subjects. RESULTS: The reliability of the Italian ACE-R was extremely good (α-coefficient=0.85). Two different cutoffs were identified for young-old (cutoff 79; sensitivity 90% and specificity 80%) and old-old subjects (cutoff 60; sensitivity 82% and specificity 100%). CONCLUSIONS: The Italian ACE-R is a valid screening tool to detect dementia, especially in the old-old population, which represents not only the fastest growing age group but also the group at the highest risk of dementia in Western countries.