A speech rate of less than 137 words per minute was tied to higher risk for overt hepatic encephalopathy. Speech analysis surpassed animal naming test in spotting minimal hepatic encephalopathy.

The speech tasks included a paragraph reading, a picture description and an animal naming test. The paragraph reading test proved the most effective, and its relative simplicity—patients are ...

They also hope to develop an in-home web app version of the test that could be sent to patients via text message. "We are creating an app that patients can use easily at home," Bloom said.

Hoping to create an easier test, researchers recorded 200 patients with cirrhosis performing speech tasks. The recordings were then analyzed for hundreds of speech variables.