Abstract: A maintenance assistance method for assisting in maintaining a metal cable of a lifting or transport apparatus, the metal cable forming a closed loop and cooperating with a re-tensioning system. The maintenance assistance method implements the following steps: supervising the re-tensioning operations of the metal cable by the re-tensioning system, for each re-tensioning operation of the metal cable, determining of an elongation value of the metal cable, estimating an overall elongation value of the metal cable, which corresponds to the sum of the elongation values of the metal cable determined after each re-tensioning operation, and determining a damage index of the metal cable as a function of the overall elongation value.