Clearwater Senior Living

DON’T BE FOOLED by the luxurious façade of the facility, or advertised amenities of LivGenerations in Ahwatukee. If you are looking for a place for a loved one with Memory issues, STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM THIS PLACE AS POSSIBLE. The Memory Care Unit is a “U” shaped facility with a Garden Patio in the middle, and consists of approximately 25 rooms on the 1st floor. For just under six months, our Mother lived in the Memory Care Unit, which is separated from, and in a different building than the Assisted Living facility. Sadly, the Memory Care Unit is plain and simply understaffed. At times, there are as few as two Caregivers for the entire Memory Care Unit. The Caregivers are usually nice and friendly, but most are under or poorly trained. They can often be found watching Television, sitting together in groups talking amongst themselves, Texting on their phones, and/or taking long breaks, which further reduces the available staff on the floor. We have waited for over a half hour for a Caregiver to return from being “on Break” to request pain medication. One of the better trained Caregivers even verbalized her own frustration to us regarding the incompetence of her fellow Caregivers. On at least two different occasions, I had to run to find the Caregivers to help residents that had either fallen and were crying out for help, or were calling out for help from their room to passersby for assistance, as the few Caregivers that were on duty, were on the opposite side of the Memory Care Unit, unaware that a resident needed help. We were told that the Caregivers are supposed to physically check on each resident at least once every two hours, and that often did not happen. The Emergency Pendant (Necklace) Call Button that each resident is given and supposed to wear is a total joke. Many of the Caregivers themselves told us that only about half of the system’s receivers work (this is the Hand-held unit that the Caregivers are supposed to carry while on duty that alerts them when a resident presses their emergency pendant call button). On numerous occasions, we waited well over an hour for a response to an Emergency Call (made on the Necklace) only to find out that the emergency calls never went through, and/or in some cases, the Caregivers weren’t even carrying their Receivers while on duty. LivGenerations in Ahwatukee does not employ a Nursing Staff to tend to the medical needs of the residents, and the distribution of all Medications to Memory Care Residents, Prescription or Over-the-Counter, are left up to non-medical Caregivers called “Med-Techs” with no real Medical oversight other than the original Doctor’s Orders. Some medications that were supposed to be administered twice a day, were administered once a day, or sometimes not at all. We constantly had to perform simple routine tasks such as filling water cups/pitchers, re-stocking the toilet paper in the bathroom etc. We often had to change my Mother’s Bed Sheets, or they wouldn’t get changed for weeks. For the first 3-4 weeks or so, we had to take all her dirty laundry home and do it ourselves or she would have run out of clean clothes. The amenities advertised by the LivGenerations Ahwatukee are rarely enjoyed by the Memory Care Residents, as they must be escorted over to the Assisted Living Building and back for most of the amenities or activities, and there is usually not enough available staff to provide this service. The monthly rental fees at LivGenerations are exuberant (approx. $250 per Day or $7500 per month for 1 person), and are certainly not reflected in the quality of care, nor in the professionalism of the staff. For the amount of money paid each month, one would expect 5-star service, but that is far from the service we experienced. It is sad that the bulk of the rental fees paid by the Memory Care Residents seem to go towards Profits, Facility ascetics, and/or amenities offered on the Assisted Living side of the establishment, as they are clearly not re-invested in the Memory Care Unit or its Residents. Almost all our concerns or complaints were answered with “Let me check on that and get back with you”, and ultimately went unanswered. We decided for her own health and safety, that our Mother deserved better care and moved out. We are only too happy to be out of and done with LivGenerations in Ahwatukee.

Understaffed, to the point of negligent, and overpriced