Death anxiety is the morbid, abnormal or persistent fear of one's own mortality. One definition of death anxiety is a "feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be’". It is also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death), and is distinguished from  necrophobia, which is a specific fear of dead or dying persons and/or things (i.e. others who are dead or dying, not one's own death or dying). Lower ego integrity, more physical problems, and more psychological problems are predictive of higher levels of death anxiety in elderly people.