Cirrhosis, Hepatic Encephalopathy
Conditions
Keywords
hepatic encephalopathy, covert hepatic encephalopathy, cirrhosis
Brief summary
To see if using ipod games can improve mental functioning
Interventions
BEHAVIORALipod games
Patients will be given ipod games for 4 weeks and tested in related and unrelated cognitive measures
Sponsors
Hunter Holmes Mcguire Veteran Affairs Medical Center
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 70 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Cirrhosis proven by biopsy, radiology or endoscopy * Age 18-70 * Able to give informed consent * Cognitive dysfunction defined by impaired performance on standard cognitive tests
Exclusion criteria
* Illicit drug or alcohol use within 3 months * Trans-jugular intra-hepatic porto-systemic shunt (TIPS) placement * Need for psychoactive medications apart from continuous anti-depressants or methadone * Any focal neurological deficit or neuro-muscular disease * Inability to function with an iPod * Inability to understand English For MRI: inability to perform brain MRI is an exclusion
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Improvement in cognitive test performance with iPod games | 8 weeks | improvement in cognitive performance on a battery of cognitive tests (Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score, Inhibitory Control test and Verbal Learning) after iPod tests |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Improvement in health-related quality of life | 8 weeks | Sickness Impact Profile will be used before and after the treatment |
| Improvement in brain MRI parameters | 4 weeks | change in detailed imaging parameters related to diffusion tensor imaging, resting state and voxel-based morphometry |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed