Unless the pay and training of home-care workers are improved, observes Ms Poo, ageing baby-boomers may have trouble finding competent people to look after them in their dotage.
And inflation, now approximately 10% year on year across the rich world, is cutting the purchasing power of fixed payments that those in their dotage are receiving.
Roebuck may have been an extreme case, since he was actually in his dotage, yet this did not prevent the Lairds from accepting his lead, or the House from taking him seriously.
But its main challenge this year will be to boost the figures for the Japanese studio and prolong the life of its Switch console, which experts say is in its dotage after seven years on the shelves.
The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.