Merrill Gardens

Merrill Gardens has great potential. Administration and staff is very kind and caring. Food service needs better administrative supervision. Cafeteria staff would benefit from regular training in caring for elderly.

My parents have lived at Merrill Gardens for the past few years. Staffing is always a problem. Chef quits regularly and any good staff leaves for better paying jobs. Can't keep a general manager. Food is horrible. If you need any help with daily living, they charge even more. Very expensive and rent is always going up. They need to pay a decent wage and try to keep staffing consistent. I do not recommend this place.

We toured this community and it wasn't a good experience, in fact, it made me a little nervous in regards to thinking that all communities were going to be like this. The place was clean however it was very depressing no activities being done the residents were sitting around in what looked to be the dining area. There was nothing on the tables the community just had no personality to it. As you were walking around you couldn't help but notice a smell that was not pleasant. The staff was a little pushy trying to get us to commit to a lease and as we were walking around we didn't see a lot of staffing.

This place is pretty good!

I visited my friends in their apartment and was given a tour by them. Except for the high cost, I was favorably impressed until we had lunch. The salad bar was fresh, but very limited. The entrees, however, were almost inedible. Fish tasted old and unpleasant. The ribs were burned and tough and left uneaten. Friends said they had a new chef who was trained at Cordon Blue, I believe. If so, he must have graduated at the bottom of his class...or he falsified his resume. Desert was good, but I am sure it was purchased from elsewhere.. This is an expensive place. No excuse for poor food. I'll pass.

Not the best of care.

I suppose that Orchard Park is rated a 5 star if your parents are able to have assistance. Memory Care side, have all stages of Alzheimer's. My frail parent has had 2 room mates that has abused her. She is not a full blown Alzheimer patient, but has room mates that are. One, use to steal her stuff and the other one has broken my Mom arm and has pitched feces onto my mom's bed. I picked my Mom up at 9:30 a.m. and her room was a mess with feces and clothes all over and the smell was awful - when I returned Mom back at 3:30 p.m. - the room had not been touched, still smelling and a mess. This is not a nursing home, but to get into a Nursing home by Obama Care you have to have a broken hip or back that way Medicare doesn't have to pay for it long. So with a broken arm you have to learn yourself to eat with your left hand or go hungry. Even paying out lots of money - still have to be there to feed and dress her. I would take her home with me but I don't have Power of Attorney - just doing the best I can. Don't know what Captcha means. Not in my dictionary.

They seem to be a little understaffed even though they have the "required minimum" if anyone is sick or needs extra help there isn't really anyone "extra" to give them attention. We have had to move our Mom because she needed a little extra help getting settled (she was slapping her legs and yelling No!) and they felt it was disruptive to other residents. We know that if there would have been at least one "extra" person that could have gone to her and comforted her she would have settled down. She is really not disruptive to other residents (per our observations) she just needed a little extra attention at certain times and there weren't enough staff to help make that happen. She was given 3 weeks to acclimate - since we've never been through such a thing before we don't know if this was a "normal" time period for her to settle. We looked to their expertise and were told they had not ever dealt with such behavior and couldn't give advice. That was hard to believe since we personally know two other families with dementia parents who have exhibited the same types of frustration behavior. We don't feel like they were much help with advice upon move-in or with what to expect. We got the standard answer of "everyone is different" and when our mom started having her frustrations the staff were saying she was fine and getting better but the administration was saying that she was a problem and we would probably have to move her. At 5 weeks in they seemed to be short staffed due to illness and that is when we were given 30 days to find a new place for Mom. The truth is we think she was settling quite well and when she was upset if she was given a hug and distracted she would calm right down and her "episodes" were generally first thing in the morning when she was frustrated with getting dressed and whenever she was asked a question that she couldn't answer. I would think that experts in the field of memory care would understand that frustration from someone who can't even remember their own name. I have to say that if you have a family member who is cheerful and easy in all ways or docile and not hard to take care of then Willow Park is a great facility but if you have any issues of any kind this is probably not a wise choice. I make this observation by spending many hours per week at the facility with my mom and observing the other residents and their interactions with staff. They are wonderful caring people - they just don't have much time for any individual attention beyond bathing, dressing, feeding... Hope this helps

Although, my mother has started her rent as of March 1st, she has not as yet moved in. It would not be a fair evaluation at this point. She has gone to Fig Garden for several meals, but she still needs to move furniture into her living space and as yet has not even spent the night. She has felt welcomed and included into the circle of table mates. Perhaps another month she will be able to haved moved in and can offer an opinion.

It’s so new. We went and the staff was so new. It was all young people and they were just all scatter brained. Mom did not want to take a chance with them because it was just a young, inexperienced staff.

The property is in need of constant repairs. The pool roof caved in while my mom was there and the elevator quits regularly. The balconies are in need of repair. The front facade cannot be cleaned. The current Mgr is disrespectful to the residents and their families.

There has been a lot of employee turnover, so they have been short staffed pretty much the whole time [name removed] has been there. I would not recommend Merrill Gardens at Willow Grove at this time.

My loved ones moved out of Merrill Gardens [date removed] ago to a private home. They were very unhappy with Merrill Gardens management. Serious negative experience with general manager and senior management overall, but much more positive experience with kitchen and other support staff. Many concerns for example senior management refused to provide basic. Meals were hit or miss. We understand that overall they were probably better than many other places but for the $, ?? Our main concern was not having low sodium options. The games and other silly activities were fine for those who like that but intellectual activities, such as book club and community discussion. Too expensive not to have better service/care from management.

There was poor communication from administrators that resulted in us leaving to another facility

My mother was a resident at The Pines for about a year and a half prior to her death. They were mostly understaffed with high employee turnover, and not equipped to handle the issues that come along with caring for someone with Alzheimer's or dementia. My mother did not receive the level of care or understanding that she deserved. Her room was rarely cleaned, her personal hygiene was not up to par, her belongings were often lost and never found, and communication was poor. It seems their way of dealing with the disease is to heavily medicate patients. She fell almost daily during her last few months there and they did not have the staff to keep an eye on her to keep her safe.

Was very disappointed by leadership, cold and unhelpful. Turmoil in memory care staff, management of medications, dealing with typical dementia symptoms. Overall experience was painful and upsetting. Would not recommend

Biggest problem is they don't do the services that you are supposed to to be getting, my mother was 96 and I constantly had to ask why she wasn't bring escorted down to the dining room with her walker, even after 2 falls no one ever came to her room to help her get dressed or shower. We recently had to move her since she had to go to the hospital, then rehab upon evaluation after 2 weeks at rehab they informed us that they didn't have the level of care that she needed! I had Easter weekend to try and find a new facility and move her, it took me 5 days to coordinate with a new place and we spent $450.00 a day out of pocket at rehab before I could finally move her to a new facility. I specifically asked about the care level since we were moving her due to the fact that her previous facility , ivy creek was only independent living once mom needed more care and to start her long term care she needed assisted living, very misleading about the care level and they can't handle much as an assisted living facility, my mom didn't even need a 2 person assisted level

We moved her out because she wasn't getting the care she needed there was a time they didn't shower her for over a month...they just put her in her room after meals... and forgot to take her to dinner one time... so many things we moved her.. it looked nice when you went in but ??? If you could walk it was a decent place but if you needed assistance it wasn't good.

The memory care unit was not as presented. I was told there were activities for residents, but upon every visit, at various times of day and night, residents, often appearing drugged, were seated in wheelchairs in front of the TV. Because of some typical Alzheimer's behaviors exhibited by my loved one, along with only two staff working at night, I was told I had to hire around the clock "sitters" at $[removed] an hour in addition to the almost $[removed] I was paying for so-called "memory care." That would have been around $[removed] per month total! Fortunately, I was able to find an actual memory care facility that truly knew how to care for Alzheimer's patients. They knew how to deal with behaviors without forcing families to pay extra for "sitters." They also provided everything including furniture down to toilet paper! Also, the new place was about $[removed] a month less for much better professional care. They actually had lots of activities every day! I felt blessed to find a much better place!

If they are giving medication to your parents make sure all the paperwork is correct and make sure they give you all the right medication at the prescribed time I guess all in all taken into consideration I would recommend them