Can I have a digestive endoscopy if I have a history of Parkinson's disease?

Hello doctor, my father is 70 years old, has a history of Parkinson's disease. Recently he had gastrointestinal bleeding, black stools, decreased hemoglobin, pale skin. He was treated with injections, blood transfusions, and IV fluids, but the bleeding did not decrease much. The patient is not conscious due to dementia, can he have a gastrointestinal endoscopy? If endoscopy is not possible, is there any effective way to check and treat him? Thank you doctor!

Báo Đồng Nai•08/06/2025

(Ms. Thuy Linh, residing in Nhon Trach district)

Doctor replied:

Hello Thuy Linh!

Gastrointestinal bleeding is a dangerous medical emergency, requiring patients to be monitored and treated at medical facilities with digestive and endoscopy specialties in order to be diagnosed and treated most accurately and effectively.

Most cases of gastrointestinal bleeding are currently recommended to undergo early endoscopy for diagnosis and treatment within the first 24 hours of hospitalization. However, in some special cases, doctors may have to consider the benefits and risks of performing an endoscopy to choose the appropriate endoscopy time for each specific patient. Especially in patients of advanced age, poor health, many underlying diseases...

In your father's case, the patient was not conscious due to memory loss, which made the endoscopy much more difficult due to the patient's poor cooperation. However, if necessary, a gastrointestinal endoscopy can still be performed.

In this case, the patient may undergo endoscopy under general anesthesia or sedation with airway control. During the endoscopy, the doctor will look for bleeding points and intervene if necessary.

In cases where the risk of endoscopy is too high and endoscopy cannot be performed, there are a number of other methods to help the doctor diagnose the bleeding site and treat it, such as:

CT angiography: Helps detect the site of bleeding if bleeding is ongoing.
Or angiography (DSA) and embolization: Is a vascular intervention method that helps detect bleeding sites and uses chemicals to embolize the bleeding site to help stop the bleeding.

Therefore, in your father's case, you should talk directly with the treating doctor to clearly understand whether your father's current digestive bleeding condition is stable or not, and at the same time be able to choose the most effective and optimal treatment option.

Specialist Doctor 1 Nguyen Thai Hoa,

Deputy Head of Department, Head of Gastroenterology Department, Dong Nai General Hospital