So mom has been asking to go to Texas for a visit over the holidays or shortly thereafter to visit family. Any advice?

If there are going to be reunions with lots of people, you need to organise a ‘minder’ for her. The minder brings people to her to talk (and if she is in a wheelchair there needs to be two extra seats so the talker doesn’t have to bend over), then lines up the next person and smoothly replaces the talker after a few minutes. You need to introduce with name and a memory. This is all quite stressful for the minder, so you might want to find a family member to do it in shifts with you. I’ve just done this at a big family reunion with my older sister, also in a wheelchair. People are strange – they avoid bringing attention to themselves by talking with the person who matters – they say I’m not ‘family’, other people here are more important, I don’t know what to say, blah blah, and the person who matters ends up sitting all alone with their head at other people’s stomach level. Pick somewhere where mother has a chance of hearing what people are saying, unlike the restaurant I was coping with this last Saturday night. If you organise it and monitor how it is going, you can also have ready a quiet place where mother can have ‘time out’, and an exit line when she has had enough. You need to be Director and Choreographer! Good luck.

The thing about dementia is the ever-changing behaviors & emotions that cannot be predicted or controlled. Every hour is different, never mind every day! My mother gets totally exhausted after spending 1 hour at my house during the holidays, and wants to rush back home to her room in Memory Care. I can't even imagine taking her on a real trip. Plus, she goes from being happy and perfectly fine to miserable and complaining of pain in the blink of an eye. But you know your mom best, and can probably gauge her behavior better than we can. If you go ahead with this, I'd be sure to pack a supply of anxiety medication in case you'll need to dole it out to her. And keep it short, like you said.

Best of luck! Let us know how it goes

If Mom has made this trip before and it has been successful, it might be ok. However, if her disease has progressed to the point that she is consumed by the past, she maybe at the point where, when you visit these places you write about, she cannot comprehend why the places have changed and aged and the people she remembers are no longer there. She may become anxious and upset. She may also become overwhelmed by the large crowd even though they are family. Holidays can be stressful for people who don’t have dementia. People with dementia are resistant to change in routine and she may feel lost by unfamiliar scenery and people she no longer recognizes.

If you’d like to go, give it a try. But, have quiet places for her wherever you go and have someone assigned to monitor her reactions. If you see her become stressed, remove her from the situation immediately.