My 87 years old Mom with alzheimer/dementia wants to go home every night I visit her at apartment. How should I handle this situration?

Put a locator necklace on her because pretty soon she will wander off. Call her MD and find out about memory care facilities nearby. Act ASAP, you don't want her to get lost and freeze to death. Alert the local police to her condition, roaming is the next phase.

Absolutely go along with her. Tell her that she's spending the night here and can go home tomorrow. Tell her she can go home "later." Then change the subject. When she asks about her Mom, ask questions about where her Mom might be - at the store? At her friend's house? Redirect her to reminisce. When she sees an alarming hallucination, get info about what she is seeing, and offer comfort. "That man outside your window can't come in now because I locked the window and called the police."

Try to find out what she is thinking, and respond to that with information that does not conflict with her reality any more than you have to. Make up a stock phrase like, "By the way, where did you go to first grade?" Or some topic that she will happily talk about. Better a calm mother telling the same story for the 100th time than a mother being told things that upset her.

This is a very hard job. God bless you.

We had the same issue with my MIL. Several books we read regarding dementia said the patients who say they want to go "home" may be referring to their childhood home. Dementia patients long for comfort and for many they view their childhood with their parents and family members as their most comforting memory. Ask her what the address of her apartment is and who is living there. We did that with my MIL and discovered she thought her mother was still alive waiting for her at her childhood home. When she asks to go home (and gets upset because we won't take her) we try to redirect the conversation and she, normally, forgets and moves on, even if only for 5 minutes. It's exhausting. Good luck.