STIFFNESS AND UNSTRETCHING: Morning stiffness in the elderly is a painful entity often ignored, but frequent in institutions. Unstretching in the morning is part of the criteria in the diagnosis of inflammatory pathologies, but morning stiffness in old patients appears different from that described in rheumatological diseases and arthrosis.STIFFNESS AND UNSTRETCHING: Morning stiffness in the elderly is a painful entity often ignored, but frequent in institutions. Unstretching in the morning is part of the criteria in the diagnosis of inflammatory pathologies, but morning stiffness in old patients appears different from that described in rheumatological diseases and arthrosis.Various affections can be accompanied by morning stiffness in an elderly patient: arthrosis, but also various consequential affections, static disorders, deformity. We felt it was important to define the precise criteria that individualise this pathology so as to improve its management.STIFFNESS AND UNSTRETCHING: Morning stiffness in the elderly is a painful entity often ignored, but frequent in institutions. Unstretching in the morning is part of the criteria in the diagnosis of inflammatory pathologies, but morning stiffness in old patients appears different from that described in rheumatological diseases and arthrosis.Various affections can be accompanied by morning stiffness in an elderly patient: arthrosis, but also various consequential affections, static disorders, deformity. We felt it was important to define the precise criteria that individualise this pathology so as to improve its management.Non-medicinal measures often reduce the intensity and duration of this symptom and implicate all those attending to the patient. Medicinal treatment has a more limited place in the fragile elderly patient, but its role remains to be assessed.