EFFECT OF EDUCATION, AGE AND GENDER ON ADDENBROOKES COGNITIVE EXAMINATION IN A TAMIL POPULATION

Objective: The study is done to derive the effect of education, age and gender on thescore of Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination questionnaires Tamil adaptation.Materials and Methods: A modified Tamil version of ACE which has not yet beenformally validated was performed on randomly selected elderly individuals whovisited our hospital for other ailments during a duration of 6 months from November2018 to april 2019 (N=162) without any pre-existing cognitive impairments and wasstratified based on their education status, age and gender.Results: It was found that education as well as age had effect on the score of Tamilversion of ACE termed T-ACE but gender did not play a significant role in the scoring,and education was found to have a higher effect on the scoring than age. The score wasfound to be lower for lower levels of formal education and higher for higher levels offormal education. T-ACE score was also found to decrease as the age increases. Thescoring of T-ACE was found to be 60 ± 3.51 for education levels 0-4, 63.5 ± 4.12 foreducation levels 5-8, 71.4 ± 5.61 for education levels 9-12, and 77.12 ± 4.1 foreducation levels greater than 12.Conclusions: Our study has confirmed that education has a definitive role on theperformance and scoring of T-ACE, and this has to be considered when scoring isdone.Key words: Addenbrookes cognitive examination, Tamil ACE, Dementia, scale.Key message: Education plays a major role in ACE score. ACE score varies in differentpopulation according to level of formal education and age.