Hepatic encephalopathy Hepatic encephalopathy Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is an altered level of consciousness as a result of liver failure. Onset may be gradual or sudden. Other symptoms may include movement problems, changes in mood, or changes in personality. In the advanced stages it can result in a coma. Hepatic encephalopathy can occur in those with acute or chronic liver disease. Episodes can be triggered by infections, GI bleeding, constipation, electrolyte problems, or certain medications. The underlying mechanism is believed to involve the buildup of ammonia in the blood, a substance that is normally removed by the liver. The diagnosis is typically made
Adjective Adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified. Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although they were historically classed together with the nouns. Certain words that were traditionally considered to be adjectives, including "the", "this", "my", etc., are today usually classed separately, as determiners. "Adjective" comes from Latin "" "additional (noun)", a calque of . In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were inflected for gender, number, and case like