Those with controlling personalities are a strange breed yet this is only one of many characteristics we all have. Maybe the trait is not confined to the older generation, but, for instance, what about those who won't even allow their elderly partner to use a walking stick? Cancer or whatever - it makes no difference, appearance is everything.
A spectrum exists ranging from those who hang onto their mobility no matter what and use whatever it takes to keep walking, on to those who go for the image of the noble invalid and become less and less mobile. Use it or lose it! (Of course all this is a generalisation. Real problems exist.)

What about the Australian artist, Margaret Olley, way up in years, photographed using a walking frame, in Egypt, with the pyramids in the distance?
When she was younger she would have visited this Egyptian Obelisk without any assistance for that was back in 1970s when she lived in Newcastle for a time following extensive visits abroad.
From this vantage point several line drawings of Newcastle were made by her and are exhibited in the Newcastle Gallery at present.