The Opal Senior Living

My experience with Truewood by Merrill, Charlotte Center

Brookdale Inver Grove Heights is understaffed and The Director is not always available for questions. There's no nurse on staff (all the time) to answer questions regarding prescriptions, like what is my loved one taking, etc.. The doctor is usually not there either, I don't know when the doctor comes in. I would describe their communication as poor because I never hear from them. When I ask questions they never get back to me. When I can find them, I have to keep pressuring them and asking the same questions. I haven't had the time to call them, but it would be nice if they were there. Brookdale needs additional staff and a nurse on duty during the day. I would also like to receive feedback from the nurse and more thorough explanations of what she reports back to me.

Good community. It wasn't was clean as I would have liked or anticipated.

I was not impressed and it didn't feel like the right fit.

The Retreat at Port Orange wasn’t quite as good as I expected, especially for a facility that focuses solely on memory care. My loved one participated in an activity during our tour, and it was not quite as good as what she experienced at another place we visited. It was also an older facility, and it just didn’t feel as homey.

There is no communication between the staff and the employees at this community. It feels like there is no chain of command and they are doing what they want to do with the patients. They don't call me when I need to know things about my love one and more. There are people there that I truly like but things are not going well. It feels like a lot of things are being swept under the rug and I do not like it, I am just not happy period.

Since my mom moved in, we have noticed that at times there is a strong urine smell in the hallways. We have also had some spotty issues with the cleaning services in her rooms, we have to remind them. They recently had a change in management, so we are hoping some things may improve. She is pleased with the food and the room sizes are very good compared to others that I visited in the area. The facility is also one story which is nice.

The community is very short-staffed and I would not recommend them for assisted living or memory care

Older facility but had all of the necessities. People were very friendly. Rooms were a little smaller than we really wanted.

Very clean and well lighted facility in the commons areas. Staff is very welcoming and engaged with residents. The relatively small number of residents would be well suited to many folks, but not for my Mom.

The most important part about this community are the staff members on the floor, they take great care of the residents, we have never seen anyone ever being mistreated. There are some problems though, and one is the food. We see a lot of sandwiches on the memory care side, and frozen vegetables so we bring in supplement food for residents to share. In the enclosed courtyard on the main facility side is beautiful, and the front of community has eight beautiful painted rocking chair but nothing is being used. On the memory care side there is only a gazebo, but it cannot fit all the memory care residents. The furniture is not being used and the administration is ignoring the problem.

For the most part the care was great. They seemed overwhelmed when our loved one was there. The response time on the call button from the residents pushing it was slower than expected. There have been residents that have contracted COVID, and we don't know the protocols the community is taking to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Nice place.....rooms on smaller side but ok.....clean...friendly staff

ratings above

The meals they serve to the residents are not good, it is just not good food for those who are elderly. The rooms would be about a three out of five, and we would not recommend this community to others.

We chose Belvedere Commons because of the smaller atmosphere and we felt like there was a good staff to patient ratio. Since then, the communication has been horrible from the staff members and the staff to patient ratio has changed for the worse as well. I would tell others that when we moved in they told us a lot of things that were offered but it was not the case once he got in here. It looks good on paper, but be cautious before moving loved ones in here.

When I put my mother here, they told me everything would be taken care of. Shortly thereafter, my mother fell in their care and they told me I would need to hire my own full time nurse to accompany her. She also had some personal belongings go missing. My mother did not like it here. It was a pretty clean community. The staff was ok, it depends on who you were talking to, some of the staff were good and some were not so good. I felt that some weren't doing their job in the way they should have been doing it, which I think you will find anywhere. It was a conveniently located and very clean. Some of the staff did try really hard.

Long waiting list.

only 3.5 rating out of 38 only. Assisted living only....sounds "too old" for mom.

Clean , overall nice staff, some things fall thru the cracks , not great communication not much for activities and food is not healthy or pleasing. Lot os starches , gravy and sugary desserts . Not much choice in menus residents complain about food a lot. Still waiting for changes