I can certainly relate to this one! My 95 y/o mother is always asking questions that are sometimes difficult to answer, then she forgets the answer, and she is very hard of hearing, so after visiting for an hour or two I'm worn out! My sister has had a health condition, and I'm asked specific things, such as "is she in less pain today than yesterday?" [I don't know]; "is she eating much? [I'm not around my sister enough to know]; "don't the doctors know what is causing it? [they believe it's stress, which I tell her]; "why would she have stress?" [I can't answer that specifically--you would have to ask her]; "how old was Dad when he died? [90]; "why did he die and leave me?" [he was worn out physically and mentally, and it's basic biology that everyone dies]; etc. By the time I've gone through this a half-dozen times, I start getting irritated and sometimes she catches on. I have found that typing out a basic Q&A list (often eliminating the questions themselves) sometimes helps, but then she'll come up with "follow-up" questions. She has some form of dementia, but even when she was much younger she was an "interrogator" but her hearing was better and at least she could remember the answers.

I envy people who are only dealing with repetitive stories as opposed to questions, often open-ended ones. However, the "flip side" is that while I was still working, I was noted for being able to deal with nearly any phone request, even if it required a lot explanation--and I pointed out to others that my job was easy compared to visiting my mother! Even though my mother is a pleasant, loving person, it still gets nerve-wracking.