Five Star Senior Living

Location is always good and the facility is nice. But at 10am, the more I walked down the hall way, the more intense the aroma became. I had checked out this location 2 years ago; with most wheel chair residents just locked down in the hallway, but as a functional father - I don't think this is the place.

Just left 3 days ago after one month respite. Facility cozy and rooms bright with large windows. Friendly staff. Do not recommend for respite unless things improve under direction of new Nursing Director. Significant cautions, particularly if medication is important for your loved one and if there is no one regularly there to advocate for them. Moved in at time (one month ago) when there was severe staffing shortage and disorganization and poor communication among staff and with residents and family. Despite our 6 hour daily presence and involvement, it took 13 days for dad to get his first scheduled bath. Rise time for the day ranged between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. though resident requested 7 a.m. New Nursing Director recently arrived and is trying to overhaul. Scheduled bathing remedied. Rise time range improved a bit. Medication continued to be a problem until the end. Ran out of meds four times. Three times ran out before trying to refill. Fourth never refilled and dispensing accidentally stopped completely. Up until final days, frequent incorrect dosing of at least one of the meds and absence of one entirely. Dad was on special diet including thickened liquids but meds were dispensed with unthickened liquids for weeks until I caught it. While there, dad struggled severely with congestive heart failure and pneumonia. He aspirated meds when given multiple to swallow at one time. Had great trouble getting the lasix needed to help with his congestive heart failure. Had we not pushed, staff would have delayed for a week until traveling nurse came. We had similar challenges with treatment of his pneumonia. All diagnostics had to be requested by family. No indication that staff could/would have recognized problem and taken appropriate action on their own. The accidentally discontinued med and the misdosed one were crucial to his heart and swallowing conditions. Seems to explain why Dad suddenly developed uncontrollable congestive heart failure and pneumonia. His health was stable even before and after his fracture, surgery, and rehab. Health declined significantly only after arriving at the Gardens. By discharge, he had congestive heart failure and pneumonia in both lungs and we were debating whether to take him to ER instead of home as planned. Since he’s been home for three days, he’s begun to improve. Discharge note extremely riddled with errors: meds left off, misnamed, incorrect condition, incorrect and incomplete history (reported LEFT leg fracture when it was his RIGHT leg, other significant history omitted, current diagnoses omitted). This was important for dad who left for home therapies (PT/OT/ST). Errant report has caused a lot of confusion with home care admitting nurse and therapists. While at Gardens, we chose in-house therapy but would not recommend on-site PT/OT/ST unless there is no urgency nor need for predictability. Dad was there for recovery from fracture and was coming from a rehab facility. We’d expected no significant interruption in therapy but therapy was slow on starting with OT wanting to delay eval until a week post arrival. Additionally, we were unable to get the home aid prescription filled so when Gardens staff wasn’t available to give scheduled baths for two weeks, neither could we obtain outside help that was covered under insurance. Using an outside home therapy provider means more reliable and predictable visits, along with home aid for bathing. In-house therapy offers no such aid but has PT, OT, and ST, and makes available therapy room that is otherwise not available to visiting therapists. In-house therapists were very warm and kind. Nursing Director is very responsive and responsible and is in the process of implementing some significant and much-needed changes, but I’d recommend you do your own investigation. Ask residents and any family present about their current experiences. If your loved one’s health is stable and medication isn’t important to your loved one’s well-being, and if what your loved one needs is just warmth and affection, this is a sweet place.

Although I was initially impressed with the facility, our experience at lunch was disturbing in that one resident had her hand raised for over 15 minutes and not one employee approached her to ask what she needed.

I looked at Morning Star when I was looking at different living options for my parents. When I went on a tour, I was just lost. We were over in one part of the facility, and then we were in another. It was just too confusing, and I could just imagine my parents getting lost there as well, so I chose another community.

I toured Wellstead while looking for living options for my father, and while I thought the facility itself was good, I really was not impressed with the woman who gave the tour. She did know what she was talking about, and was informative, but she gave the impression that she wasn’t really involved with the residents. When I saw her interacting with them, she didn’t know people by name, and the conversations just seemed wooden. As I said before, even though the community itself was nice-looking, I wasn’t really made to feel comfortable by the staff and the people there, so I ultimately chose a different community for my father.

Visited here. Place smelled of urine and residents did not care for the food in the dining room as we waited for a tour.

I was not impressed with the atmosphere here it felt more like a hospital/institutional setting rather than a "community". My tour was down well and they took their time showing me around I just did not feel that this was going to be a good fit for my mother.

We were not impressed with our tour of this community. The staff was very kind, and friendly to my family, and I. However the cleanliness of the community was not good. They could use some improvement went the cleanliness around the facility. We not had felt comfortable with my mother in law living in this community.

Don't put your parent or lived one there if they need any kind of help. They are bare boned staff. Nursing supervisor is not nice. They show you the whole facility at the sales pitch, but neglect to tell you the assisted living residents don't really have access to the downstairs unless they can go on their own ( but they need assistance because they are in assisted living?) or guess what, you can hire an aide to take them down to listen to music for a half hour,but guess what again, the agencies all have a minimum of 3 to 4 hours at a time. An expensive trip to the show. Try Willowwood or The Bridges.

We had a good visit and decided to move my Mother to this facility. Unfortunately they have failed to live up to our or even minimal expectations for care. My Mom has been in the community for about a month now and they still seem unable to get her on the bath schedule(supposed to have 3 a week) and get here consistently bathed. They were not very good about checking on her the first couple of weeks. My Father has had to confront the staff a number of times about the care Mom has been receiving including one time where it appears someone on staff forged the care documentation as my Father arrived just 30 minutes after they supposedly checked and cared for my Mother and the condition my Father found her is was just unacceptable and likely could not have occurred in a 30 minute period. Things have improved to a certain extent but we are seriously considering moving my Mom out of this facility.

I looked at a room and it did not have a private shower. At the time I was looking for only primary memory care, They did not have focus only on memory care.

Not exactly a warm and fuzzy place. Stacy is nice, but it's basically a fussy, stuffy, "full of rules" place. My mother said the food was good.

My mother just passed away at the gardens. She had been there for several years and I thought she was being well taken care off. I picked up her stuff on Saturday and was shocked to see how filthy her room was. She had some nice furniture and someone left me a note wanting to know if furniture was for sale. Less then 24 hours after she died I had to endure this heartless nonsense. I felt like the ladies who took care of my mother were looking to grab some of her stuff in the room. People kept coming in the room and looked around while I was packing up her stuff. My Mom told me they were stealing her stuff, which was blamed on her dementia, but perhaps they really were trying to steal her stuff. Have no illusions that this is a profit company. It seemed the money was the most important issue with them on every level. I am feeling guilty I left her here because I have no idea how they really treated her. You hear horror stories and I so hope my intuition is wrong. There were some wonderful people that worked there and my gratitude goes out to Pat at the front desk. I have a sick feeling I let me Mom down by subjecting her to this place.

I have waited six weeks before reviewing this facility, so I can give it a fair assessment. I visit my Mother every other day so I believe I can give an accurate review. In short this facility provides the basic services it advertises. If you are looking for a compassionate environment for your loved one, best to look elsewhere. I find the dietary staff to be very engaged and caring for my Mother's needs.. I find the RN's to be jaded and lack compassion for their chosen profession. A handful of the aides are very caring and willing to help my mother's last days to be comfortable. I fully understand the difficulty of caring for elderly with various issues, but unfortunately this facility falls short in many key areas for me to refer it to friends and family.

Our experience with The Montebello was a poor one, and I wouldn't recommend them. We had issues with the staff being rude and disrespectful towards my loved one, and I have heard the same complaint from personal acquaintances, so I know it wasn't just us.

Nice facility but rooms are real small

My mother lives at Savannah Square in Savannah, Georgia. I live in Savannah and quite frequently eat with my mother and spend time with her. Several of the things that are so very wrong with this community are: Quality of food is better at the homeless shelter nearby where I sometimes help out. The food is too often dried out, not what the people ordered, tastes like it is trucked in, dumped in a pot then served. The maintenance is beyond comprehension: When a resident calls for a service, it may take up to three weeks for repair then the person is not knowledgeable to perform the repair. The manager of the complex is nice and when a complaint is filed, he appears to understand and says he will take care of it - but it doesn't happen for several weeks. I will say on the whole, the help is nice and willing but like anywhere else, you get what you pay for and apparently, these employees are not getting paid a dime. Everyone I come in contact with, I mention the poor service and poor management of the community - I don't necessarily fault the manager, but the people that own the facility - some conglomerate that does not care at all - let them have their mother stay here and I wonder if it would improve!

My mother in law lives in independent living and has for over four years. She called me the other night and said the food served for dinner was so bad she couldn't eat it and went to bed without dinner. This happens all the time. She and the other residents complain over and over again to no avail. If I had another place for her to live I would assist her in moving tomorrow!

I toured this community while looking into care options for a loved one, and this place was a big disappointment. The assisted living section was just depressing. Many of the residents were just parked in the hallway outside their rooms, and nobody was talking or even smiling. I would not have felt comfortable placing my loved one here.

We started out on the wrong foot due to an apparent communications issue. Gina thought A Place for Mom had canceled my appointment so she wasn't expecting me. The tour was good but I didn't feel that the happiness factor was there on the part of the residents. The Memory Care building was too folksy for my Mother and the Assisted Living building didn't really leave an impression. They have great reviews but it just wasn't for us.