<p>I used to make all of our bread and such hard core things as croissants, dacquoise, tiered wedding cakes, and petit fours. I’ve used a cuisinart, kitchenaid, and bread machine for the bread. I’d go with a Kitchenaid. (I have the 5 qt type where you flip a lever to raise or lower the bowl.) It is far more flexible in terms of which phases of baking it can do. It would enable your mother to skip the heavy mixing and do some lighter kneading by hand at the end, beat egg whites, cream, cake batters, cookie dough, etc. Yes, it’s heavy, but I just leave it out on the counter. (In my dream kitchen, I would have one of those special cabinets where it rises up and locks in place. 
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<p>IMHO, it would be much better for your mother to keep doing some kneading in order to preserve her muscle strength than to just give it up altogether. My mother is 90, lives alone, does yardwork, bakes bread, etc. I know that everyone is different and she is in many ways very lucky, but there is something to the concept of “use it or lose it.”</p>