The proportion of people with dementia was different between studies (range: 15% to 55.6%). The average age in all the studies was over 60 years. Who do the results of this review apply to? These issues mean that the accuracy of the ACE-III and mini-ACE may have appeared better than it actually was. The studies were small and did not study enough people to be confident about the results. There were some issues with the methods used by studies: the way in which patients were identified and enrolled into the studies, and the way in which the ACE-III and mini-ACE were carried out were not well described. How reliable are the results of this review? At the lower test thresholds, there were fewer false positive diagnoses of dementia (between 64% and 100% of people correctly identified as not having dementia or MCI). However, there was more variability between the studies in the number of false positives identified by the tests (between 0% and 96% of people were incorrectly identified as having dementia and between 8% and 54% of people were incorrectly identified as having MCI). The ability of both the ACE-III and the mini-ACE to identify patients with either dementia or MCI was variable (between 70% and 99% of people were correctly identified as having dementia and between 64% and 95% for MCI). We did not combine the study information statistically due to significant differences between the studies. This review included seven studies with a total of 1711 patients four studies examined the ACE-III, and three examined the mini-ACE. The ACE-III and mini-ACE are not used on their own to make a diagnosis of dementia, but help clinicians when used in addition to other clinical information and investigations. The thresholds describe the score at which a diagnosis of dementia should be considered and these are usually 82 or 88/100 for the ACE-III and 21 or 25/30 for the mini-ACE. The mini-ACE is shorter, with only five questions, and a total score of 30. The questions cover five different areas of brain function, and a higher score indicates better function. The test is performed with the patient who presented with, or is suspected to have, dementia. The ACE-III has 21 questions, with a total score of 100. The test is performed on a patient who is suspected to have dementia.

The aim of this review was to find out how accurate the ACE-III and mini-ACE are in identifying dementia and MCI across a range of healthcare settings. The ACE-III and mini-ACE are currently used in clinical practice, but the evidence for their accuracy to identify dementia has not been fully established.

There is therefore an increasing need for tools that can assess memory and learning to aid the diagnosis of dementia and MCI. The number of people being diagnosed with dementia is expected to increase significantly over the next 10 years.

Ace 3 medical system