The paper examines the question of how the patient is framed as an object of diagnostic and medical knowledge, focusing on the phenomenon of ageing. The issue is addressed through a synthetic approach, combining the paradigms of medical anthropology,phenomenological-hermeneutics, and discursive analysis of normative texts. This perspective attempts to draw critical attention to the incorporation of the so-called medical methodologism and modern scientism, classically considered to be value-neutral anduniversally applicable to medical practices, regarding various forms of physical and mental suffering.The figure of the geriatric patient opens the possibility for а critical look at 1) the symbolic monopoly over the understanding and the interpretation of the human condition which the official medical discourses may be exercising explicitly and implicitly, and 2) the historical dynamism of the renegotiations of the boundaries of categories such as health, norm, and pathology.