care home claims UTI & dementia caused permanent mobility disability - can this be true?

[Allyearcheer]

My mum is in her early 70s and was admitted about 6 weeks ago to respite in a care home due to a UTI. Mum's dementia is pretty advanced (she lives with DB) but physically she was fit and loved to go for walks. My brother says the care home and social worker have now assessed her and say she needs a permanent care home place (which is fine, she does) but also say she is now immobile and this is permanent and a result of the UTI effect on dementia. My brother said when he visited, mum needed two people to help her out of a chair and that she was much more vague and her dementia much worse.
I have not been impressed by the communication from the care home. When I spoke to the nurse she said mum had a lump on her hip from a hip replacement (my mum has never had a hip replacement). I was also told mum can talk to communicate her needs but does not chat (mum is normally very chatty) yet when my brother visited he was told mum did chat to other residents.
I am suspicious that mum's mobility deterioration is really due to been left to sit in a chair for six weeks and that now there are no plans to help her physical rehabilitation. Walking was one of the very few things that my mum has always enjoyed that she was still able to do. I am not really sure what to do or where to go about this. DB is happy with their explanation and accepts it. But I can find nothing when I googled it to suggest a UTI can have this effect. I don't really see how it can have caused such an advance in the dementia in such a short period that mum can no longer walk ever again. And I have visited dementia units for people with dementia much more advanced than my Mum and people there were walking. Any advice?

[Knitmyshickers10]

My MIL stopped walking after a succession of UTI's, she just declined after each one, firstly being able to shuffle along where we went through a time where she was falling all the time until this Christmas where she had another UTI which she has been bedridden since.
Unfortunately UTI's can be devastating despite us thinking 'oh it's just a water infection'. My MIL has taken huge downturns after each one she has had. Sorry about your mum, going into a care home can also deteriorate dementia patients too, that was when my MIL really started to go down but we had no choice, she was unsafe in her own home.

[Jugglingballs65]

Lump on her hip? Has anyone looked at this properly? Has she had a fall and ? Fractured or dislocated her hip?
As above UTIs can cause big problems for people with dementia. Any infection can advance the dementia, the brain in very sensitive to infection in dementia.
also dementia varies from person to person so there is no exact pattern or stage at which mobility is affected.

[dementedma]

My father is in a care home. He has dementia and is always much worse when he has a UTI. There is a well known correlation between the two. I don't know how it affects mobility but it certainly impacts on the dementia side of things

[Allyearcheer]

Thanks everyone. I knew UTIs can cause temporary problems for people with dementia, but not permanent. It makes me really sad that mum will not be able to walk again. That was what we did, it was the last of the things that we did together that we could still do. Dementia is absolutely awful.

[Allyearcheer]

Juggling, care home say a gp has been seeing mum about the lump on her hip, but I am still unclear what this is or where it came from.

[whataboutbob]

I can only offer up my own experience here. Dad has AD, diagnosed in 2012, had always been very mobile, in fact restless, but started slowing down this summer, then had a few adverse experiences: a fall, several chest infections and possibly utis, got less and less mobile and started having lots of falls, suddenly couldn t manage stairs, all in the space of a few weeks. He ended up in hospital and at the best interests meeting we were told quite categorically he had no rehab potential and would not walk again. Now he is in a care home... and is walking again. How it happened I don't even know, maybe getting over the infections (he also had MRSA). Certainly the AD has affected his balance centre and his walking is no longer so self assured and vigorous, but he can do it.

[sablepoot]

We have been told Mil is permanently immobile/bed bound following utis twice now. Both times she has in time made a full recovery.