The fatigue of the elderly subject, crystallized in a repetitive complaint, can be read as a narcissistic defense in the face of decline. It then allows the patient to maintain a reassuring bond of dependence, to preserve their psychological unity, while fighting against the irreversibility of the loss.
Whether physical or cognitive, decline is a whole that represents more than the deficit of one or more functions. Unless we place it in a cycle comparable to that of daylight, decline refers to an individual history which has reached its peak and whose decline heralds its disappearance. But this is an image of human destiny that people believing in resurrection or reincarnation are not the only ones to reject because others experience their old age as a spiritual blossoming which in their eyes contradicts this decline. As for the thought that decline brings the end of existence closer, it does not systematically present itself to the consciousness of those affected and many of them suffer it, at least for a certain time, without being aware of it.
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