Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cognitive deficit in Parkinson disease (PD) is an important cause of functional disability in these patients and early detection, with sensitive instruments, can contribute to longitudinal monitoring. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III in patients with PD, using the comprehensive neuropsychological battery as reference method. METHODS: Cross-sectional, observational, case-control study. SETTING: rehabilitation service. A total of 150 patients and 60 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and education. For level I assessment, Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination (ACE-III) was used. Level II assessment used a comprehensive neuropsychological battery of standardized tests for this population. All patients remained in on-state during the study. The diagnostic accuracy of the battery was investigated through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. RESULTS: The clinical group was divided into 3 subgroups: normal cognition in Parkinson's disease (NC-PD-16%), mild cognitive impairment due to Parkinson's disease (MCI-PD-69.33%), and dementia due to Parkinson's disease (D-PD-14.66%). ACE-III optimal cutoff scores for detecting MCI-PD and D-PD were 85/100 (sensitivity 58.65%, specificity 60%) and 81/100 points (sensitivity 77.27%, specificity 78.33%), respectively. Age was inversely associated with the performance of the scores (totals and domains of the ACE-III), while the level of education had a significantly positive correlation in the performance of these scores. CONCLUSIONS: ACE-III is a useful battery for assessing the cognitive domains and to differentiate individuals with MCI-PD and D-PD from healthy controls. Future research, in a community setting, is necessary to provide discriminatory capacity of ACE-III in the different severities of dementia.