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Abstract Details
Hepatic Encephalopathy is Associated With Slow Speech on Objective Assessment
Am J Gastroenterol. 2021 Sep 1;116(9):1950-1953. doi: 10.14309/ajg.0000000000001351.
Patricia P Bloom1, Jessica Robin2, Mengdan Xu2, Ashwini Arvind3, Michael Daidone4, Anoopum S Gupta5, Raymond T Chung4
Author information
1Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
2Winterlight Labs, Toronto, Canada.
3Department of Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.
4Division of Gastroenterology, Liver Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
5Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract
Introduction: There are no available low-burden, point-of-care tests to diagnose, grade, and predict hepatic encephalopathy (HE).
Methods: We evaluated speech as a biomarker of HE in 76 English-speaking adults with cirrhosis.
Results: Three speech features significantly correlated with the following neuropsychiatric scores: speech rate, word duration, and use of particles. Patients with low neuropsychiatric scores had slower speech (22 words/min, P = 0.01), longer word duration (0.09 seconds/word, P = 0.01), and used fewer particles (0.85% fewer, P = 0.01). Patients with a history of overt HE had slower speech (23 words/min, P = 0.005) and longer word duration (0.09 seconds/word, P = 0.005).