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Cross-study data guides
A guide to the cognitive measures in five British birth cohort studies
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1946 National Survey of Health and Development
NSHD Age 68-70 (2014-2016)
NSHD Age 68-70 Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III): Total Score

NSHD – Age 68-70 – Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III): Total Score

The MRC National Survey of Health of Development (NSHD) assessed their cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 68-70 sweep using the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III).

Details on this measure and the data collected from the CMs are outlined in the table below.

Years of data collection:	2014-2016
Domain:	Verbal and non-verbal ability
Measures:	Attention/Orientation
	Memory
	Language
	Verbal Fluency
	Visuospatial Skills
CHC:	G (general ability)
CLOSER Source:	Explore this sweep in CLOSER Discovery: NSHD 2014 (Age 68) and 2015 (Age 69) (links open in a new tab)
Administration method:	Administered by a research nurse. Mostly conducted using the ACEmobile app, installed on an iPad, with prompts to guide interviewer through the process. Pen and paper used where necessary (e.g. drawing tests).
Procedure:	The ACE-III was designed to detect mild dementia and distinguish between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) (Mathuranath et al., 2000). Although it may be considered a measure of general cognitive ability, it was developed as a screen for impairment for use in clinical settings. It contains tasks/questions that measure 5 different cognitive domains: attention and orientation (scored 0 – 18); verbal fluency (0 – 14); memory (0 – 26); language (0 – 26); and visuospatial function (0 – 16). The tasks/questions used to assess the 5 specific domains are outlined separately in the next sections. Responses from the 5 domains can be summed to create an overall cognitive functioning score (0 – 100). ACE-III was administered by the interviewers via iPad using ACEmobile (http://www.acemobile.org). Where this was not possible, a paper version was used. All offline scoring was undertaken by trained personnel.
Link to questionnaire:	https://skylark.ucl.ac.uk/NSHD/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=mrepo:ace-iii.pdf (opens in new tab)
Scoring:	One mark per correct item (0 – 100)
Item-level variable(s):	ACESCRAT15x – ACEVISIOTOT15x
Total score/derived variable(s):	ACETOTFIN15x, MINIACE15x
Descriptives:	Raw score
	N = 1,762
	Range = 53 – 100
	Mean = 91.52
	SD = 6.01
	(click image to enlarge)
Age of participants (months):	Mean = 834.14, SD = 2.93, Range = 828 – 848
Other sweep and/or cohort:	None
Source:	Mathuranath, P. S., Nestor, P. J., Berrios, G. E., Rakowicz, W., & Hodges, J. R. (2000). A brief cognitive test battery to differentiate Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. Neurology, 55(11), 1613-1620.
Technical resources:	Noone, P. (2015). Addenbrooke’s cognitive examination-III. Occupational Medicine, 65(5), 418-420.
Example articles:	Matías-Guiu, J. A., Valles-Salgado, M., Rognoni, T., Hamre-Gil, F., Moreno-Ramos, T., & Matías-Guiu, J. (2017). Comparative diagnostic accuracy of the ACE-III, MIS, MMSE, MoCA, and RUDAS for screening of Alzheimer Disease. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, 43(5-6), 237-246.
Example articles:	James, S. N., Davis, D., O’Hare, C., Sharma, N., John, A., Gaysina, D., … & Richards, M. (2018). Lifetime affective problems and later-life cognitive state: Over 50 years of follow-up in a British birth cohort study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 241, 348-355.