Language impairment in adults with end-stage liver disease: application of natural language processing towards patient-generated health records.
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ABSTRACT: End-stage liver disease (ESLD) is associated with cognitive impairment ranging from subtle alterations in attention to overt hepatic encephalopathy that resolves after transplant. Natural language processing (NLP) may provide a useful method to assess cognitive status in this population. We identified 81 liver transplant recipients with ESLD (4/2013-2/2018) who sent at least one patient-to-provider electronic message pre-transplant and post-transplant, and matched them 1:1 to "healthy" controls-who had similar disease, but had not been evaluated for liver transplant-by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and liver disease. Messages written by patients pre-transplant and post-transplant and controls was compared across 19 NLP measures using paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. While there was no difference overall in word length, patients with Model for End-Stage Liver Disease Score (MELD)???30 (n?=?31) had decreased word length in pre-transplant messages (3.95 [interquartile range (IQR) 3.79, 4.14]) compared to post-transplant (4.13 [3.96, 4.28], p?=?0.01) and controls (4.2 [4.0, 4.4], p?=?0.01); there was no difference between post-transplant and controls (p?=?0.4). Patients with MELD???30 had fewer 6+ letter words in pre-transplant messages (19.5% [16.4, 25.9] compared to post-transplant (23.4% [20.0, 26.7] p?=?0.02) and controls (25.0% [19.2, 29.4]; p?=?0.01). Overall, patients had increased sentence length pre-transplant (12.0 [9.8, 13.7]) compared to post-transplant (11.0 [9.2, 13.3]; p?=?0.046); the same was seen for MELD???30 (12.3 [9.8, 13.7] pre-transplant vs. 10.8 [9.6, 13.0] post-transplant; p?=?0.050). Application of NLP to patient-generated messages identified language differences-longer sentences with shorter words-that resolved after transplant. NLP may provide opportunities to detect cognitive impairment in ESLD.
SUBMITTER: Dickerson LK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6828779 | biostudies-literature | 2019
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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