Hepatic Encephalopathy.

Hepatic encephalopathy is a disorder of the brain that may develop in people with liver disease. Symptoms are progressive and may include personality changes, intellectual impairment, memory loss, and coma. The disorder can occur in individuals with acute or chronic liver disease or inadequate blood flow to the liver. In hepatic encephalopathy, toxins that are normally evacuated from the body by the liver instead accumulate in the blood and eventually infiltrate the brain. Many of the symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy can be reversed if diagnosis and treatment are made early during the course of the disease.