A Study For Availability Of Neuropsychological Test In Patients With Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy

Neuropsychological tests were performed on patients with chronic liver diseases in order to select a more reproducible, sensitive, and specific battery of tests that would be useful for the clinical detection of minimal hepatic encephalopathy. The results of the neuropsychological tests of the patients with liver cirrhosis, who represented the group with possible minimal hepatic encephalopathy, and normal controls showed statistically specific differences in the Trail making tests, the Digit span test, the Digit symbol test, the Block design of WAIS-R, and the Letter fluency test after correcting for the patients' level of education. An appropriate test set of neuropsychological tests is needed to provide information on the different aspects of the patients' mental performance, to assure a reliable diagnosis of latent minimal hepatic encephalopathy, and to overcome the variations according to age, education and cultural factors.