I toured several places and I was very happy with Somerford House & Place Newark. It's very bright and the staff is very friendly. The programs and the way that they run the memory care facility are excellent. I'm happy with the staff, the appearance, the cleanliness, and the programs they have. Some of their programs in the memory care facility are based onn the Montessori teaching methods, which is something that I thought was impressive. They have music therapists that come in and play instruments with and for the residents, which is important to my dad because he was a musician. We find their pricing to be very reasonable.

My dad lived at Somerford House & Place of Newark. It's spacious but I didn't like anything about them. I didn't care for it. I feel like they're understaffed and they are not equipped to handle somebody with advanced dementia. I'm not angry with them or anything like that, but I do not recommend them for people with dementia. They need to improve on the staffing. They called my dad a different name and they didn't even really know his name. It was really kind of terrible. Appearance-wise, it's clean and it looks good, but they tell you one thing and do something else. Dementia is a very all-over-the-place thing, but they expect all of their memory patients to be on a set schedule. That's not how it works if somebody has that illness. I know how unpredictable dementia is and I don’t feel that they do. The staff is not trained properly to handle somebody with memory problems. I feel that their staff needs more training and experience in my dad's illness.