Bethesda Senior Living Communities

The worst mistake of my life was entrusting Mother to the care of Director [name removed] at Collinwood. While the facility is nice enough to look at, a few of the seriously overworked employees are making near heroic efforts to take care of some of the residents, and apparently the director (Director [name removed]) is good at making her management happy (by making them as much money as possible, including spending as absolutely little as possible on the residents), when it came to giving residents like my mother an optimal quality of life, Directory [name removed] failed miserably. Mother deserved better than the treatment she got there. When I respectfully pointed out to Director Jacoby and her staff specific issues that should be addressed, e.g., cooking chicken so it was not raw, not having hair (human?) in food served to residents and their guests, allocating more than $1.67 per resident per meal (their numbers) (out of the thousands of dollars per month residents like my mother paid), OUT OF

The marketing sales person gives you a lot of information that ends up not being true by the nursing staff. The assisted living community is supposed to be assisting the residents in my opinion. We were told that they would check on the residents every 2 hours; however, the nursing staff stated that they wouldn't be checking on the residents every 2 hours, and that the resident needs to be advocating for themselves. The staff would check on the residents during the medication drops which was approximately 2-3 times a day. The staff saw that my loved one was on the floor, but my loved one said they didn't fall. They staff didn't try to assist my loved one one back onto their feet either. My loved one ended up having to go to the hospital. The community stated that they would make arrangements to the hospital, but the family would be responsible for making arrangements to get my loved one back to the community. The assessment paperwork wasn't signed by the nurse that did my loved one's assessment. I found this out afterwards.

When we first got here we had a very hard time finding parking. There was a little side yard off of the front door and the staff were all standing there smoking, it just felt unkept. They did not look or seem professional at all. We peeked in the front door and the wheelchairs were lined up in the hallway and people were just sitting there slumped in their chairs and that really bothered me. When the director came out to talk to us I felt she was very unprofessional and kind of rude. I got a very bad feeling from her so we ended up not continuing with the tour.

This is where our mother currently lives. They are horrible. Three Executive Directors, three memory care team leads & managers in an year in a half. Currently no Activity Manager or personal. The are using employees from the Assisted Living side to fill in. No training on memory care. They do not know the residents and their needs. We would not recommend.

I would want others to know that we had a bad experience here. They do not care at all for your loved ones especially if they are combative. When I went into his room they were not cleaning so it was very messy, I had to give him showers and clean his room myself. His clothes went missing when we were here, when he would go to the bathroom or dirty them, they would toss them out. They also changed management 3 different times during our stay here. I also witnessed abuse twice when I stayed here overnight when they did not know I was there, I contacted their director about it and they said they reported it to the State. She was only suspended for 2 weeks. I would not recommend this facility to anyone.

This facility continues to have issues with medicine procedures. Also the food seams to keep getting smaller and smaller portions along with pour quality. And my Mom is small doesn’t eat a lot. So I’m sure most of the men have problems getting enough to eat.

My mother lived there for years, so glad we are out. It is nothing like it used to be and the management team and staff has significantly declined.

This place is a high priced institution. They don't let the residents interact with their friends and I am sitting by myself for all meals. I spend most of my time by myself in my room.

Walking into the facility, the carpet in the entry is torn and is held together with peeling duct tape. There was a faint odor in the air that was not pleasant. There was no one there to greet me. I walked into a room that looked like an employee break room where there were 3 people; none of them knew I was coming or anything about a tour. I left and will not be returning.

If there was a 0 star I would do it for these people. My adopted mother lived here for about 8 months and they never made sure she brushed her teeth or recognized when something was wrong with her. She had pneumonia and a UTI and when we visited her we had to point out that she was not feeling well. The CNA's are very friendly but the lady that runs this place (Jody) is not very well liked by the employees and we found her extremely uncaring to our mother. Our mother ended up in the hospital before Thanksgiving and was transferred automatically to Lifestream's rehab (cook) and not the facility we wanted her to be in. We feel this is because they wanted to make sure my Mom never returned to their facility. Jody kicked her out just before Thanksgiving so we had to worry about my Mom being homeless at that time. My Mom is a very friendly lady and there is no reason for her to be treated like this. I think Jody has her ego to worry about and not the care of the elderly. Now my Mother is in a very nice facility and is able to thrive in there. They make sure her teeth are cleaned and make sure she is walking by herself (another problem with Lifestream) and she is so happy at her new Assisted Living Facility. She has a more positive atmosphere at the new place and I think that helps a lot. I believe everything happens for a reason and I am so glad it did happen this way. It was a total blessing. Lifestream was good when we first visited , it appears to be a great place but when you actually start dealing with the upper management (unavoidable ) it starts to fall apart. I think that if they replaced Jody (everything starts from the top) that it would have a chance of becoming a good place to live again. I had to contact an Attorney and advocate for my family because of all this and they had never heard of someone being treated the way my family was treated. I hope this helps for someone else that might be treated like this. I am sure we are not the only ones. I sure felt alone and helpless trying to deal with my Mom's situation when Jody was so cold and uncaring. Apparently she is the same way with the employees and with the trickle effect I would not recommended this place to anyone until Jody is replaced.

Bethesda Gardens Memory Care Facility is a wonderful place for my mother. Would highly recommend

I was not happy with them. They didn't do anything they promised me they were going to do. They didn't keep up with my care, or the care of my dog. They had a bad attitude, I would call for help, and they would say that they were busy. The management was really nice and talked it all up, but when it came to the staff, they wouldn't do the work, or if they would, they would have a really bad attitude. I chose them because they said they could do all the things that I asked about. The laundry and the housekeeping was okay, but the rest of it was awful. They didn't have a schedule to keep, nobody knew what to do when, and the same person never came to help. The residents were offering to help me, more than the staff.

The Autumn View on Schuetz Rd is not as it appears. You will see a nice facility and friendly staff, but the realities of living there are quite different from the appearance. Staff turnover is constant. Food is poor, high in carbs and starches. Food service is poor, unfriendly, untimely. Facility management and accounting is sub-standard and not trustworthy.

Depressing environment - Staff friendly but appeared limited - Carpets dirty, apartments rundown - No bridge

We were not impressed with this community and it was not what we were looking for for our loved one. It just did not give off the right feeling.

Our experience with Bethesda Gardens began well enough, but since most of the primary staff with whom we first dealt left the facility by March, my husband's "care" was suspect. I would advise anybody who has a loved one needing care--especially one who has any behavioral issues--to check this (or any other facility) out thoroughly so that you don't have the type of experience we did the last few months. The trust we'd had in the previous staff had dwindled, and my husband is now deceased.

We moved my mom in on [date removed]. Mom began thriving there as the care was outstanding, unfortunately everything changed when they lost their Director of Memory Care. Instead of hiring the person directly underneath the director that left they went outside. This resulted in the resignation of the 2nd in command. She went to another local memory care facility and took all competent caregivers with her. The quality of the caregivers currently there is very low. They don't know how to speak to the residents nor care for them. Recently we have found marks on my mother. We have turned them over to State twice in the last 30 days. Needless to say that we had to move my mother because of this. Yesterday I got a report from the Gardens on their latest investigation. They found that they were in the wrong for the injuries to my mom. Please think twice about sending your loved one to this facility.

My mom had been a resident for 8 months. At first the care was top notch but after losing their director they went outside and hired someone incompetent. Basically all staff but 2 left and care went downhill from there. The current caregivers are disrespectful to residents and activities barely exist. This morning is the second time I've had to call State. It will be the last as we are moving her out. Both times I've called State there was bruising involved on her body

We did not have a good experience with Bethesda Gardens. After two months we took Mom out of there forfeiting our $2500 deposit. I had expressed my many concerns to the corporate director but received no reassurance that things would change. In fact after our discussion another infraction occurred and I tried to call Bethesda Gardens to talk to someone (it was 8:30 on a Sunday evening) but nobody answered the phone. I called and left a message on the director’s voicemail threatening to call the police to go check on my mother. He called me back immediately and admitted that he too had tried to call on “off hours” before and no one answered. This was not our first experience with a senior living community. We know how they can and should be operated. I would definitely not recommend Bethesda Gardens to any of your clients.

My mother lived here from [dates removed]. The management is awful: my mothers room flooded three times and they moved her bed without telling me and she fell because they did not have her bed at the angle she was accustomed to. When I came to visit no one was at the front desk and I never could get a straight answer about my mothers care. I noticed she declined rapidly after that fall, and that move. The caregivers were always sneaking out the back door to smoke together. I pushed my mothers call button and it took over an hour to have them respond. Someone broke the plug to my mothers hospital bed: they had the head up and the feet up and left her that way for a week! My mother was miserable. The management promised to apply a credit which they never did. I moved her to [removed] in North Arlington.