Brookdale

It has not been a good experience. Generally speaking, like with other facilities, they are short staffed. And my loved one's health has really declined since she's been with them. We are not happy at all. We've had one issue after another, and they've been major issues. They don't answer the phones. They're not checking on her, so she's not eating and drinking properly. They've been noncommunicative about her care. It has not been a a good situation.

The sales cycle is very misleading. Beware of hearing every answer you want to hear when in reality things are different. Specifically and most concerning, it's regarding the caregiving. You're told there will be a personal care plan designed for your loved one's needs, and they'll staff to that level of care. Of course you'll pay extra if that's beyond what they generally provide. They also say you'll have a personal relationship with the caregiver and a team of people looing over and taking care of your loved one. In reality, you tell them everything you need, they develop a custom care plan, and then they don't staff to meet that care plan. They just use their normal people and tell you they're fully staffed. For the entire floor, there's only 1 med tech and 1 caregiver. If your loved one needs special care services and attention, their life will be at risk because Brookdale simply can't/won't provide extra care even though they tell you they will. And then they charge you for the extra services they're not delivering. You the family member need to be in charge and be the quarterback for your loved one. You can't rely on anyone in the facility to be in charge of anything. Especially if you don't live in the are and can't be there every day, it's a nonstarter. I do not recommend them.

Our issues were I showed them repeatedly how to feed my loved ones dogs and it never happened. I think there was poor attendance to my loved one. I would tell others to know that if you put your loved one here and they try to harm themselves, they will get kicked out immediately. It might be a better experience for someone else but it was not me, I just did not feel like they did what they were expected to do.

Do not go there. The sales man was great. They didn't tell us they are short staffed with only contract workers. The level of care was nothing like what they said we would get. When you first go there you pay a $2000 service fee to make sure everything works in the room. His first day, the call light didn't work. He had to yell and yell to get help to the bathroom. The maintenance came the next day and had to replace the call button. The sales manager said the light was pulled out? After we asked why things were not working clearly, when we just paid that fee. The office manager was not nice. They said the first few days my Dad would have another resident to show him around. This was not the case and he sat alone to eat. One of the other residents went to help push him in his wheelchair and he was dumped to the floor. The staff was supposed to be getting him into his pajamas, that didn't happen. They were supposed to be opening his blinds, etc. The head nurse was phenomenal, absolutely incredible. We ended up removing him due to all of this lack of care, etc. He was supposed to be a diabetic diet and they kept giving him all this sugar like orange juice and saying "it was alright". The outside doctor changed his medicines and never informed my Mom regarding these changes. It wasn't a good experience.

I was not happy with this community. It was too far away and I did not like the manager of this community and the things that she was saying. It just felt too rigid for the type of environment that we wanted.

I wasn't impressed with the community. The tour guide didn't seem to know much about the community or answers to my questions.

I do not recommend Brookdale Carriage Club, we did not have a good experience at all. They were severely understaffed and the staff that they did have were not accommodating. The quality of care was not good. It is so overly priced for what you get. The room sizes here are very small. My loved one went in doing pretty well and by the time we left she was in worse shape.

Overall, it's not bad. The facility is relatively nice, with good food and good people. But the people at the top who are running it are very inflexible and difficult to deal with. And bottom line, it's just way too expensive.

my loved one stayed at Brookdale Westlake Village for a short rehab stint. it was fine for that reason, but I am glad we did not make the decision to keep her there long term. my mom stayed at Brookdale several years prior, and it seems like the quality of the place has significantly declined since then. after visiting my loved one, I made the decision to choose another community that was much better suited.

This community was not too good. It smelled like an old place and they kept calling me hoping that we would go with this community and we just knew that this community would not work out for us. The tour was nice and the people were nice the building was just not what we were looking for.

When my family and I came by on a Saturday afternoon, no one was at the front desk. If we call or visit during the week, the receptionist has been cold and unfriendly. A warm and welcoming atmosphere should be everyone's experience every time he/she enters the front door.

We had a terrible experience, including multiple issues with medications - wrong dosages given, pills dropped on the floor and then they said they could not administer or replace them, one essential medication not given at all for three days because they couldn't cut a pill in half. There were no clinical people except for one nurse for the whole facility. There were no certified nursing assistants, no certified med techs, nothing. I know it's a bad time with Covid, but they just did not have staff in general. There was no communication between staff in the facility. My loved one's bathroom floor was slippery - he and I both slid, and he actually fell. We told the staff about it and had to fight them to do anything about it. The majority of the residents were low functioning and did not speak, so he had no social interaction. The food was horrible. I think it all goes back to how highly understaffed they are. They have only five core people: the sales person, the Executive Director, the maintenance person, the nurse, and the chef. I think they really did try. But my loved one was just not getting care. And It was just a very bad, unfortunate experience.

My loved one was a smoker and they wanted her to go outside to smoke among other reasons my loved one moved to another community. I would say to take a close look and get everything in writing they are very reactive and not proactive.

I expected this community to watch my husbands skin care during baths. His legs swelled up and I waited for them to tell me for some time and they never said anything about it. I was surprised that nothing was ever mentioned so I removed him. I just feel like if I was not watching my loved one things may have gone bad.

The tour itself was okay. But my impression from the tour was that Brookdale Brookhurst was too much corporate-run for my preferences.

This community could work to improve on their communication skills.

I would encourage you not to take your loved one to Brookdale Portage. The communication was horrible and they weren't accommodating to the residents. It didn't seem that my loved one's bathroom was cleaned more than once. This was disappointing to us. It seemed there was always some type of excuse with them. There were some staff that were wonderful to work with though. The activities director was great and she worked hard at getting my loved one involved in activities. The onboarding experience was horrible for us at this community. They never read the choices of meal options to my loved one.

Do not put your loved ones in this facility. A big issue we had was their prices are not fixed and they will take every opportunity they can to nickel and dime you. Any discounts that were applied in the beginning are then added on to the cost the next year.

We had a very bad experience with the medical staff, his care had a lot of be desired while he was here. I would have given them much higher ratings if it were not for them. The staff turnover is also very high, they have a hard time keeping and hiring people. I would not recommend them to other families who are looking due to our experience.

I would tell others not to go here. They have no staff (although I know everybody has staffing shortages right now). They're completely screwed up on all of their schedules. Even though I go in there four days a week and talk to the nurses and staff, no schedule has ever gone as it should. The food is just okay. My dad's apartment smells like a smoker's motel, and they haven't fixed that. My mom has a leaky toilet, and they haven't fixed that. I have not been pleased.