She was diagnosed with dementia / Alzheimer's 5 years ago. When living with me she would not let me manage her meds and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. She has been in memory care for the last 4 years. She insists that there is nothing wrong with her and she is capable of living on her own.
Let her lead the conversation, but navigate it your way by choosing something innocuous about what she’s said and amplifying on that.
“Why don’t we chat about it when I come tomorrow?” seems to work pretty well too.
Safe, supervised, medically managed, basic needs, peaceful, all good.
Also, I'd keep in mind that when a person with dementia keeps asking why they can't go home or live alone, it might not be that they are persistent. IT might be due to them forgetting that you have already explained it. My LO would forget in 5 minutes what I had told her, so her repeatedly questioning me about going home was not to be persistent. She had forgotten my answer that was given 5 minutes previously. So, I had to keep giving her the same answer, like it was the first time she asked it. I even wrote the answers to her most common questions in a notebook and put it in her room. I said when you have questions, read the notebook. But, it didn't help at all. She forgot to read it and even when she did read it, the words held no meaning to her any longer.
I'd keep in mind that she may not continue to ask these questions forever. Often, after a while, she'll stop doing it.
My mother suffers from dementia also & lives in a Memory Care community for the past 5+ years. Just recently, she's decided she lives with ME and asks why I'm not going to pick her up! I remind her that she's been living where she's at for over 5 years now, but I don't think it sinks in at ALL. So we've been having the same 'talk' every night for a while now.
It's not easy this whole mess with dementia, is it? I hate the condition with every ounce of my being and wish they'd find a cure for it and a vaccination against it.
Wishing you the best of luck