Bridge Senior Living

My number one concern for my loved one or anyone else's is that they're taken care of and not just left in their room. My loved one received very poor care here. I do know they have gone through a total leadership change that started in the time she was there. So I would recommend asking how well the new leadership is actually overseeing the caregiver staff. The caregivers were absolutely horrible for the most part, although there were a few diamonds. I loved the director of memory care, but she quit while we were there because of all the chaos that was going on. Until that caregiver team is worked out, it's just not a safe place for people who have a lot of physical needs to thrive. My loved one also had a bad experience with the food. When she would special order things, they wouldn't come, so she would go without eating. If The Sheridan did everything they said they were going to do, I would have had no issue with it. But we just had problems form the get-go, and they never got things in place. It was such a disappointment, especially after how highly they were recommended. The grounds and the facility are a beautiful setting, and they sell themselves very well. But it was all just smoke and mirrors.

Overall it was not the right for my loved one.

This place went from and 'A' rating (during Atria tenure) to a 'C-' rating. Problems include lack of staff retention, food quality and options, amount of social activities, social activities boil down to watching movies, lack of exercise, change in accounting procedures, friendliness of management, lack of trips, minimal staffing so as to create extended waits for help, lack of communication with families.

Woodbridge has great potential but unfortunately, they take themselves for an independent living facility rather than assisted living. Watch for routine "upping" of care levels with hefty cost increases and no additional care. A few mature aides and medical technicians and other staff display the knowledge and temperament to interact with the elderly and are wonderful. Sadly, there are also immature individuals on staff who lack adequate training or do not have the temperament for a caregiving role. Imagine overhearing an aide say to your aged parent who has requested assistance to stand "NO...I'M NOT DOING THAT. YOU'LL HAVE TO TRY HARDER!!" I cannot recommend Woodbridge at this time. There is a critical need for staff training and in-services, including communicating with the elderly, which may bring the "tender and loving" part of TLC back to this facility.

I would tell others that the administrative staff I worked with were excellent and very responsive. But the medical side of it, I did not think he got the quality of care that he needed while he was here. I do know they have new staff but it is taking time for them to rebuild what was lacking. I was not pleased with our experience but I would tell others to check it out and decide based on your loved ones needs are.

My husband was in the dementia unit at Bridges, severely disabled from a stroke (could not stand up). Bridges sent him to the ER to petition a 302 on him: involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital. It was denied. A person with dementia is not considered to have mental illness, and is not eligible for a 302 which requires mental illness. I learned about this in a class I am taking at Family Service Association. Beware before you send your loved one to Bridges dementia unit. From a lawyer's website: "For a successful petition, a threatening behavior which has occurred must be related to a psychiatric condition. The conditions which cause the behavioral symptoms of dementia are considered physical illnesses, so dementia with dangerous behavior falls between the cracks and does not qualify as a mental health crisis."

Bridges has had a tremendous amount of staff turnover in the last year. And it has resulted in a decline in their ability to care for patients. This is all in the backdrop of Covid, so you have to take it in that vein. But there was no staff training on how to care for and properly use necessary medical devices. There seems to be very little communication between direct care providers and more skilled nursing staff. I will say that the activities department did a particularly good job during Covid of trying to create opportunities when social distancing was necessary. And as soon as everyone was fully vaccinated, they started offering a lot more activities. So that's been good.

My mother lived at Woodbridge Place for 4 years, mostly in the memory care wing. Shortly after she arrived there in 2016, it was bought by another company and it went downhill after that. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Woodbridge place for memory care, Even though there were some well-intentioned management and employees, the overall management , care and communication was bad. We were constantly having to advocate for mom and often not getting the results we hoped for. One of the biggest problems was that there was never a designated director for the memory care wing, although they kept saying they would get one. No-one seemed to communicate with each other, which is so important when dealing with residents who cannot communicate well for themselves! Overall, very frustrating experience but we still felt it would be more traumatic to move mom so we stuck with it. She passed away on [date removed] on hospice care there. Again, I would not recommend Woodbridge Place for memory care.

[date removed] spoke with [name removed]. Personal care home - provide all meals, transportation, they have all activities - GENESIS is OT and PT provider. Visiting physicans, room cleaning once a week, outdoor space - big terrace, figure 8 walking space, green space, vegetable garden maybe coming, they have 24 hour a day care givers and medication technicians, if care staff not there they call 911, they are hiring 2nd nurse from 3-11 with goal of having 24 hour nursing down the road. They take trash every day and make bed like a hotel. $ 3400 per month up to $ 4400 per month. 5 levels of care $ 500 to $ 2300. She has to get her own cable TV set up. She has to get Comcast set up. have WIFI. 70 personal care apts. and 45 memory care side residents. 103 total apartments. Sides are separate usually.

My mother has complained about the place hasnt been cleaned since covid. They are short staffed. They have started charging my mom and others 5 dollars to get their food brought to them and 2.50 if they come to the dining room to pick it up. Don't really recommend anyone to put the love ones there.

The downstairs of the community was always clean, when you went upstairs it wasn't clean to the hallway wise. The residents' room wasn't clean. I found my mom with human feces on her, with a breakfast tray next to her. Everything is good, except for the memory care. You don't have any single room, and the community told me they could handle memory care. She is then put in a room with another person. Her stuff was with the other resident in the room. The price went up, and there was no place for family in the room. The room always smelled like urine because of the roommate. When my mom had a TV because the beds had to be side by side, and my mom couldn't see it. The rooms were small. The staff was overworked, and had more rooms than they could cover.

Lovely facility but the rooms are tiny and there is no closet space.

While this facility is attractive and the staff seems nice, I cannot recommend it because the food is so bad and the service is terrible. The dining experience is a major part of the day for senior residents and I am amazed at how poor it is. My mother was originally at the Somerby in Alpharetta when it opened. The food there was good. The menu was much more extensive, and the service was adequate. It is just the opposite at Somerby in Sandy Springs on all three accounts. In fact, I dread going there to eat with my Mother. We have complained, but it doesn't seem to improve. Again, I would explore other facilities, before making a decision.

seemed like we were too young for this community. Noone seemed happy here. Seemed more like a nursing home atmosphere

Don't bother going here. Absolutely no parking at all. I was there on a weekday in the early afternoon. Program seemed ok, but rooms were ave and not worth the money.

Communication between families and the staff is a problem. We are an involved family and it was very difficult to get call backs regarding our loved one. Getting food properly prepared, monitoring fluids, picking up on changes in health were all problems that took multiple visits and phone calls to correct. The "Best Friend Program has not been implemented in Assisted Living. We were told that when we moved our loved one in, we would be met by Best friends, escorted up to the apartment, etc. none of this was done. We were also told that residents supplied their own toilet tissue when in the leasing documents clearly state otherwise. We chose Somerby based on the Best Friend Program and their affiliation with Piedmont Hospital doctors. However, due to the Health Information Privacy Act, we were unaware that he would not have access to her medical information from another Piedmont physician. Staffing at Somerby when we were there seemed to be inadequate. We could never find a nurse/cna unless we tracked them down at the other nurses' station at the other end of the hall. I'm sure that Somerby is working to correct these issues, but in the meantime, we hope this review will assist others and help them be aware of potential issues. At the end of the day, you must be your loved one's best advocate.

This location always has a sign outside to find help, a concern for any business and cautionary tale sign to me! Mom and I toured this location back just before they opened, so I know it is just too expensive for Mom to be able to sustain. My husband's Aunt was there for a time, but her family, much wealthier than the average family in Maine, found it too expensive once she needed to add more (and more) care services. The care never seemed adequate. What difference does it make to have "great" actives if the person in care can't or won't participate?

Our mother, age 96 at the time, was one of the original residents in the assisted living area of The Bridges when the facility opened in Spring 2017. Not long after she moved in, the Director [name removed] was pushing for her to be placed into the Memory Care unit, when she really pretty functional at about a level 2-3 of the disease, and not ready for that extreme level of care. After about 1 1/2 years, she had dropped to about a level 4, and we made the decision to move her to the Memory Care unit, where she quickly went downhill both mentally and physically. She wanted to stay in her room and rest (age 97) rather than be forcibly locked out of her room all day for all meals and to deal with the noisy conversation, multitude of activities, and physical intrusion by more severely ill patients. Unfortunately, she fell several times, the last fall resulting in a brain bleed that dropped her into near end-stage dementia. Any one who has read anything about this horrible disease knows this stage is marked by aggressive behavior, mood swings, and poor sleep patterns / muscle control. As all this was happening, we were told by both the Director and the then-head of the Memory Care unit that our mother's behavior was the EXCEPTION to anyone's else's they ever encountered in their years of dealing with Dementia patients, when we as her family knew this was actually classic textbook behavior for this level. They refused to deal with her and told us to get round the clock aides to watch her, which more than doubled our monthly cost for the apartment. In addition to trying to accommodate the demands of this facility, we had to deal with the completely unaffected head of the Memory Care unit, who was so lacking in compassion for my mother and us, and made it a point to call my sister daily, many times more than once, to report her aggressive behavior (not unlike getting a call from the school principal!). Once our mother's level of cognizance diminished, it was quite obvious that The Bridges was not a place to give proper care to anyone suffering from advanced Dementia, even though they advertise to care until end stage. This review is to warn prospective caregivers and families that this will not be the last stop for their loved ones, and their policy in the Memory Care unit of locking very elderly and mentally disabled people out of their rooms all day to be in a full time "community" setting where a few low skilled aides can keep an eye on them and force them to do crafts is not a suitable environment for everyone; each resident needs to be treated as a worthy individual, not an inmate. This is truly sad, as anyone knows that a change in environment is detrimental to Dementia sufferers, and if forced to move from Bridges to a nursing home can be traumatic at best, and in many cases such as our mother's, result in her great suffering and imminent loss.

My mother entered this facility as one of its first occupants, and was treated well by the entire staff. However, attributing to her lack of participation in many of the social activities (she was 96 and did not have the energy to be involved in so many events each day), the the Director of the facility deemed her as a candidate for the memory care ward, and tried to push her into that unit within the first few months of her arrival, despite the fact that at that time she was still in the "bridge" stage of dementia. We resisted the move until it became truly necessary about 1.5 yrs later, when she was in stage 4 of the disease; her treatment in this unit of the facility was poor at best, as the staff was truly uneducated about the plain fact that she was cognizant enough to not want to be in the same room all day with the more severely disabled and intrusive occupants of the unit. (So you are aware, the policy for the memory care unit is to lock residents out of their rooms ALL DAY to supposedly encourage socialization, but believe it is driven by the fact there is a small staff and they want everyone visible in a central location.) So my mother withdrew more to her apartment for peace and quiet. This disturbed the head of the memory care unit greatly, and her reaction concerned us as her family, when it was quite obvious no one at her advanced age and level of tiredness could sit out in this very noisy central gathering area all day with no naps or rest time! Unfortunately the story gets worse, as within a couple of months in the unit, my mother fell several times, with the last fall resulting in a head trauma severe enough to knock her down to stage 6. Her behavior, very typical of this near-end stage, was more aggressive physically and verbally, with lashing out, hitting, crying, etc; the head of this unit and the Director of the facility then called us into a meeting to announce that our mother was the out of control "exception" to anyone they ever encountered in dementia care, when we as the family knew it was very typical behavior patterns for anyone at this stage. They demanded we get full time aids as they could not deal with her--this was truly baffling, as The Bridges clearly states on their website to care up through end stage dementia; the fact that they could not and more importantly, would not, was so disheartening, and the fact they told us our mother's behavior was exceptional was not only untrue, but utterly revealing in their lack of knowledge about this disease. The last thing you want to do is move someone in that stage to another facility when every move is traumatic for them. So we hired full time aids and still received multiple calls every day telling us of our mother's bad behavior (not unlike a school principal), as if anything could be done at this point! In addition, the head of the unit was absolutely so void of compassion and had such an acute lack of education about dementia, it was shocking. If we had known this facility was not able to take care of my mother through to end stage dementia as promised, we would have never moved her there. Please note this will not be your loved one's last stop if suffering from memory illness.

While this facility is attractive and the staff seems nice, I cannot recommend it because the food is so bad and the service is terrible. The dining experience is a major part of the day for senior residents and I am amazed at how poor it is. My mother was originally at the Somerby in Alpharetta when it opened. The food there was good. The menu was much more extensive, and the service was adequate. It is just the opposite at Somerby in Sandy Springs on all three accounts. In fact, I dread going there to eat with my Mother. We have complained, but it doesn't seem to improve. Again, I would explore other facilities, before making a decision.