[Hysteria and aging]

In the elderly, the manifestations of hysteria can take uncommon aspects such as durable conversion disorders for which a diagnosis is difficult in the context of polypathology, dissociative symptoms looking like some dementia syndromes, noisy psychiatric symptomatology with, in particular, severe depressive episodes or hallucinations. These disorders can appear without a context of histrionic personality. The evolution of hysterical disorders during life is not well known. First of all, because the nosographic systems are not constant and, secondly, because the disorders themselves can vary when observed at different times. The aging subject is exposed to an increasing symptomatology or conversely, to an improvement due to the waekening of the narcissism. It is also possible that a continuum could be established from hysterical symptoms in the adulthood to delusions or hallucinations in the elderly. The relation with the old hysteric subject must be marked by empathy and by the conviction that improvement will only lead back to a basal symptomatology.