Brookdale

We picked this community, because honestly the number one factor was availability at the time we needed

Brookdale is the best senior facility in Oak Park. The meals are excellent with varied, nutritious menus. There is 24 hour security with a receptionist present at all times. Trader Joe's is right next door. There are three floors of assisted living, but all the other floors are for independent living. Cleaning services come with the monthly fee. If one needs additional aide services, they are available. Brookdale is centrally located in downtown Oak Park, and walking distance to restaurants, shopping, the library, the post office. The staff is friendly and the residents are welcoming. Having lived here for the past 18 months I am pleased with my choice.

It's good living here.

Excellent service and care.

All seven are 5+. [name removed] is very happy and so am I!!! The site is always clean and calm when I visit. It smells so nice (I would like the scent they use for my home!). [name removed] enjoys the food and has made friends.

5 for EVERYTHING! Our mom was only here 1.5 months before she passed and we could not have asked for a better group of kind, caring, compassionate people. The facilities are lovely, clean and homey. The quality of care is beyond excellent. It's a wonderful value for the cost. I highly recommend Brookdale River Valley Tualatin!!!

Brookdale Finneytown is a very good place to leave your loved one. They will be very well taken care of there.

At 83 years old I am at the best place (Central Paradise Valley) at the best time with the best people doing the right thing in my life.

Overall, I think the staff at Brookdale Conway is amazing. They were always so helpful and understanding.

I have lived here three years and really enjoy it here the staff and residents all look out for each other.

Staff is great and property is kept clean.

Very happy here.

Very satisfied with the surroundings. Staff is very friendly plenty of activities as you can keep as busy as you want.

The residents seem engaged with each other. They're happy and talkative, compared to other places I've seen that keep the residents drugged and in a comatose state. It's been a good experience and I'm thrilled my mother adjusted relatively quickly. We picked this community because of the location, price and the sales manager staying in touch with me throughout the search process.

Brookdale was an awesome facility for my Mom. However, she passed away on [date removed] at 98 years old. I will always recommend Brookdale as a great place. Many fun events for residents and families - Mother's Day Brunch, Movies, and a super Carnival for Grandparent's Day.

The meals need to get better and have more of a variety to choose from, but the staff members are wonderful and we would recommend this community to other families who may need a place for their loved ones.

Overall I would rate most of the categories aa a 4 or 5. I would say that although they purchase quality food they sometimes are lacking in preparation. The cost is also getting high but I would recommend Brookdale.

Overall experience with Brookdale as a five, but with a caveat that it is so beyond expensive, and I do feel the cost are excessive, even with the excellent care my husband has received and continues to receive from the wonderful staff as they have become our second family. I cannot comment on the activities because he has Parkinson's and does not participate, but it does appear to me that if you are able to join in so to speak that they have done an excellent job providing activities for those residents able to participate. Quality of care is excellent and I truly believe the staff love my husband. He is a kind and gentle man. They do a lot of extremely hard work for what I consider an insufficient pay. The cleanliness of Brookdale has never been an issue. They do an excellent job of that. An item not addressed in your list is the availability of management and I have found Brookdale to have been incredibly good about that as I have dealt a lot with the management staff and they are excellent always available and always willing to work with you to solve any problems that come up realizing that this type of a facility or this industry just has a set of problems that unfortunately probably can never be fixed. Overall, I think we made the right choice and our family has commented in agreement. If you need any additional information, please feel free to contact me again

1. Overall experience-GREAT!! The director, [name removed] is an absolute angel! The day I met her, she had come in on a weekend just to check on the residents to play bingo with them on her day off. And that is consistently how she is in caring for them and their families. She gave me her personal cell phone number for anytime that I had an issue and always responded promptly and in the most compassionate and caring way! And [name removed] , the head nurse is the other angel of that facility. She very personally cares and is a fantastic geriatric nurse! They both go far above the call of duty and treat the residents like their own family. 2. Cleanliness-This is a Modern new building done very beautifully with very much an at home feel. This place smelled clean and nothing like a geriatric residential home or nursing home. Their dining hall had lovely aroma a fresh cooked food every day and not the horrible smell of mass produced food. The common areas were all always very clean and organized and well decorated. They did have some staffing shortage in the last few months of Mom's life last year. A few times I found my mom with the same clothes on from the previous day so she had never been put in a nightgown or helped with getting dressed for the next day. A few times during those last few months, I found food on the floor from the previous days breakfast on days that I was not able to go the day before and was there before the current days breakfast. (Maple syrup spilled from an uneaten tray, etc). When I brought this to [name removed] attention, she personally went and got a mop and cleaned the mess up herself. She apologized and said that corporate Brookdale had cut back on their staff and last year was a tough time to get staff anyway in my own business experience. So I felt supported by the management and I think it is always important anywhere for family to show up randomly and being involved regularly. 4. Quality of care overall good. Again in the last few months, they were shortstaffed and Mom's hygiene suffered when I was out of town. I came in to find her hair in dreads and it took several hours to work that out. I notified [name removed] who as I mentioned had limited resources. She tried to keep an eye out, but it did happen a couple more times. I didn't feel that that was a dealbreaker because mom didn't care and she could be difficult and allowing someone to come her hair even when it was me who she generally was very compliant with when I asked her to do anything. But Alzheimer's can be a tricky thing to work around, and ultimately they loved her and spoiled her so that was a concession I was willing to live with. 5. Meals/Dining-my mom moved from a facility in the Houston area where she had lost weight and had no interest in eating because the food was not good and smelled like mass produced cafeteria nursing home food. This facility cooked fresh meals and I sample them myself before I took my mom there. It had home-cooked taste and I was very happy with it. They also spoiled their residence and making special meals for them if they don't like whatever is cooked for everyone. my mom would ask for tea and coffee and they all knew that she had to have five sugars and she liked cream in her coffee. She also loves tomato soup and they kept it on hand just for her again. It was only during those shortstaffed times that I would find her trays in her room where I specifically said I did not want her to eat & they were cold & uneaten. When I let [name removed] and [name removed] know, they started checking on her and that didn't happen anymore. 6. Activities-they were great with activities. as I said, [name removed] would come out on her days off to play bingo with residents and create other fun things for them to do. They had parties more than any of the rest of us do-Always on every holiday and for birthdays, and sometimes even for no reason at all just for fun. They had an activity room with books and puzzles and other fun things. The center of the building is an open air atrium that some of the ladies did gardening and they were birdfeeders and fountains and a beautiful path completely closed in so it was safe for my mom to go in and out as she pleased. They were always wonderful to encourage everyone to participate and made significant effort to enlist my mom and activities as I requested. I always threw a big birthday party for my mother and it was very cute that some of the resident who also had to mention thought it was their birthday too and we just let them enjoy that. 7. Value for Cost-elder care is incredibly expensive and was a huge cost for me as I had no other family to help. This facility not unlike others was expensive but certainly worth it! And they actually gave me a bit of a price break and accommodated quite a lot for what I paid. The size of the facility is a huge part of the very personal care that we received there and I knew that was what my mother wanted so I made it work. The value was definitely much greater than anything else that I looked at in the city and after experiencing their care Was even more valuable to me! I would absolutely recommend this facility to anyone who is looking for a place for their loved one! As long as [name removed] and [name removed] are there, I absolutely highly recommend this place. I looked at other Brookdale facilities and they did not even come close to matching the quality of this one. They were not bad, but this is the best! That is partly because it is a new and beautiful place, but most importantly because the two ladies who run the place, that do that very difficult job with their heart and soul and it absolutely shows! I am a business owner, and I am also a nurse. So from my professional perspective, I would love to have employees like [name removed] and [name removed] . From a nursing perspective, I visited over 15 facilities, ate a meal & talked to residents & families at each one, & interviewed staff from caring & medical perspectives. I also as an ER nurse have seen MANY nursing home residents as my patients. That is what terrified me when I realize that my mother needed more care. The majority of facilities are incredibly neglectful. There are only a handful that I have seen, loved and cared for geriatric residents. Brookdale Maltsberger is a diamond in a sea of nightmares by majority in my observation across the nation (as a travel nurse). I made a very good decision in choosing this wonderful place upon your fantastic recommendation. From my personal perspective, I am also blessed with these two lovely people in my life beyond the amazing care they gave to my mother. I will forever be grateful to [name removed] & [name removed] and to all the staff who so lovingly cared for my mother! This is a home for very loved family members that are treated as their own!

My experience with Brookdale has always been very courteous, pleasant and professional.