I'm calling BS on that picture. If he's in a long term hospital stay he is going to be in a gown, he's going to have a medical bracelet, an IV, possibly oxygen and he's going to look like hot shit because no one who has been in the hospital looks good even when they are on the road to recovery. The man isn't even wearing a pulseox. If you've ever gone through it with a loved one, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So either they shoved a sick old man in jeans in a button down for a photo op (doubt) or that photo is fake as fuck. I also find the tag being on the outside of that button down shirt suspicious as fuck in an AI is stupid kind of way.

I'd go so far as to say it doesn't even really matter at this point. If he's alive, he's 84 years old and from previous videos we've seen him fall over multiple times and blank out for long stretches mid-sentence, and he's currently been hospitalized for over a month. He's not physically or mentally fit to hold office. Or, he's dead which is also traditionally a barrier to employment.

I'm also not a geologist but I think he's ready to be put in the ground

When the picture was released, the added information mentioned a "light" pneumonia. That is the shit you get if you can't swallow correctly anymore, and is one of the main killers of people who suffer strokes. If he was lying around for a few hours before he found him, his brain scans will probably show severe brain damage on his right side brain. He might recover enough faculties to not die for the next years, but i see no way for him to come back and work.

As OP said we still have no proof of life. This doctored photo of two people who looks 10 years younger than they do on any recent photo of them, proves nothing at all.

but I'm an unregistered massage therapist.

Isn’t it a photoshop of a vacation pic from a couple years ago?