Brookdale Lafayette was dated, but it was really pretty. It was a Sunday and we were early, and there was nobody at the front door when we got there, so we kind of wandered in to see who we could see. It's very well kept. We went to the rooms there and the girl that we talked to was a nurse, so she wasn't a professional talker. She did the very best that she could. She was very talkative and engaging, but we still felt like there were some areas that she couldn't quite explain enough for us. She's a very sweet girl, but she's a nurse, and she doesn't know all the areas of care. The rooms were nice, but everything was dated, the floors, the wood, and all. I liked the layout of the rooms. They have drawers or some shelves in the bathroom. They have a small room and a large room. They were really nice there. It was right after lunch, and they had a group of residents in one of the wings, and it was in the TV area. They were sitting there watching TV, and they all looked happy. It really felt good. You could tell that the people were well taken care of. There were people moving around up and down the halls, and the girl who was with us talked to all of them. They all knew her and it was nice that way. She showed us how to get in if we were to bring our furniture, talked about how the lockdown works, and who has the key. Only the people who work there have keys. They had a bunch of empty rooms, some were furnished, and some were just moved out of and were not cleaned yet, so we got to see it all. It was all nice, clean, and it didn't smell. It's pristine as it could be, and it was very well decorated. It made you feel good. It's more homey. The rooms were kept up and painted, and the floors were nice. It was just older, that's all. Everybody knew each other.

My mother is currently in the memory care unit at Brookdale Lafayette. I am not happy because they don't do anything differently for the memory care residents. The unit is locked and that is really the only accommodation made for the memory unit. Often there are activities and visitors (such as musicians) but they only come to the assisted living side. The residents in memory care are not allowed into the part of the facility where the activities are happening. And they really don't differentiate activities and adapt them for the more severely disabled residents with dementia.

We went to Brookdale Lafayette. It was very nice, very friendly, it had a nice setup, and everyone that we saw seemed to be really happy. The staff was super, super friendly, showed us everything, and told us everything we needed to know. They're not one of the newer establishments, it was a little dated, but very nice.

My mom is at Brookdale because she needs memory care. She's doing well there, but it's just really far away from where we and all her relatives live. Overall, it's been fine. She is in a memory care unit (which they call Clare Bridge), and it's in the back part of the building. She has a tiny little refrigerator in her room. She has a room like a hotel room. It has a place for her bed and a wall, and on the other side of the wall is the bathroom and the shower. It has a sink and a counter in there. We're going to scout the closet for her clothes. On the other side of the wall is a place to put couches, chairs, and a TV. It has a tiny little refrigerator in there. They won't let them have microwave, and they can't cook in the room. She gets three meals a day. Everything from medicine to oxygen are included. The staff is fine. The only problem that I have with them is it seems that when I go there after the big bosses go home or on weekends, the rules change from time to time. Whenever the big bosses aren't there, the staff tends to be more relaxed. They've gone back to masks. Everyone has to wear a mask now whenever they're out in the hallways or visiting. You don't have to wear a mask in your room or if you're visiting in the room. If you go through the community, you have to wear a mask. They had an incident a couple of weeks ago where one of their third-party vendors came in and later tested positive, even though he'd been vaccinated. Their policy is vaccinated or not, you still have to wear a mask. They tested everybody in the community, and everything came back negative. At first, they weren't letting anybody visit at all. You could pick them up and take them out to eat or whatever, but you couldn't stay and visit. Now they've relaxed that, and you can visit again. I kind of got a little upset with them because they said they called and informed me, and they didn't. For other things, they're good about letting me know and contacting me. I know that they have to be very careful because they're liable, and they don't want to get sued. It's not that they care so much about the residents, it is that they really care more about being sued. They won't allow her to have medicine in her room at all. She's eighty-five years old, and she gets aches and pains. In the middle of the night, she might wake up with cramps or something. She used to be able to just go take something for it. The medication nurse leaves about eight o'clock at night. After eight o'clock, she's just out of luck until in the morning when the medication nurse comes in. She does have a history of taking too much medication because she forgets that she took it. Because of that, they won't allow her to have any medicine in her room. If she were to take too much of something and it did harm to her, then they'd be liable. They have a lot of people take care of them. They're always nice, good with her, and nice to me. I wasn't really impressed with the food. Maybe it was just the day that I was there. One time they just got a little meal -- a chicken salad on a lettuce leaf with some crackers -- for dinner. Another time they got a couple of pieces of bread with a little thin piece of meat to go in the middle -- roast beef or whatever it was. I haven't really talked to them about it, but I'm not impressed. With the amount of money she's paying a month to stay there, I think that they should have better food for them. They should be feeding them better. I've seen the menu, but that was for the front part of Brookdale, which is basically assisted living. And then the back part, they call it Clare Bridge. The people up front, they can come and go as they want. The ones in the back in the memory care, they're locked up. They can't leave unless somebody escorts them, like if I come up there and take her out or another relative comes. They can leave and go out to eat or shop. They can't do it on their own, which makes sense because if somebody has dementia or Alzheimer's, you don't want them just wandering around. They keep the place very nice and clean. My mom says that they feed them pretty well. She says there are some things they serve that are not very good. But my mom's kind of a picky eater too. I think she told me that she can get a hamburger if she wants one. They have lots of activities for them to do. They have things that I'm pretty sure are memory things to keep your mind active. They play, they sing songs, and they play drums. They do puzzles and things to keep their minds sharp. I'm not sure exactly what all they have, but that's the kind of the program they have going on back there. Every day they have certain activities, and I don't think they do so much on weekends. But throughout the week, they have a board up by the dining room. It says what they're going to be doing at what time and everything else. She pays a lot of money to stay there; it’s almost $4000 a month. I'm not really happy, and I think it's too much. But then again, I don't know what all is involved in the cost. They're a big corporation, and I don't believe that it costs that much to keep her there for a month, in my opinion. I don't think electricity and salaries and everything else costs that much, but they are an all-inclusive place.

Short staffed. Seems to be big turn over. CNA staff are kind and helpful, just not enough of them. We need to open up and allow us to see our loved ones in their rooms. I loved Millie and she left. Can’t keep good people

Brookdale complained from day one about my husbands dementia behavior and the very first day charged me an extra $800 to modify these behaviors. Totally a bogus program. Everyday I received a call about an incident. I turned to YouTube and there were many behaviors on YouTube. I wrote a big check for the month and I thought the were a trained staff. Understaffed and crazy people. Don’t even enter their door.