I toured Salem Terrace Harrogate. The ground was very well-kept. The place isn't new, but it looked fairly new. It was very well kept. The rooms were small, but they were clean and attractive. I spoke to the marketing guy, and he was very nice. I didn't get to see any activities. I mostly went down where they had the dementia unit, which is only one floor in their building dedicated to memory care. When I walked into the entry area, it was very attractive. It looked spacious. It was well-lit. They had nice grounds outside for the memory care patients. As far as the dementia unit, it looked a little more institutional. I would only say that because it was just one big area with rooms around the outside. Some of them had little fake porches, which was nice, but it just struck me as more institutional. From what we needed, it wasn't somewhere that was going to work for my sister. The staff was fine. He answered all my questions. He was very friendly. He answered my questions about their dementia unit, but I didn't get the feeling he was that tuned into the needs of dementia patients. The facility was clean and well-kept, but I didn't care for the layout for dementia patients particularly.

I took a tour of the memory care at Salem Terrace at Harrogate. The memory care is a locked unit where the patients cannot leave, whereas assisted living, they can come and go. It's a very nice community. The building is very attractive. When you go in, there's a visiting area, and that's for the whole facility, no matter what area they're going to be in. And then you take an elevator down to the lower floor for the memory care. When you go into the memory care part, it's like an open area. One end of it is tables where they actually eat, and then down on the other end of it is more of like a lounge area. There's a big TV and some books and things, then along the sides of this big open area is where the rooms are. The individual rooms have a bathroom and a closet for their clothing. Also, at the far end of this open up area, is a door where they can go out onto like a patio area, which is completely closed down. In the nice weather, they can go out and walk around to visit out in this outdoor area, which is very nice. The staff seemed very friendly. Like everywhere, there's not a lot of them, but the ones that I saw seemed very nice. Once a week they go to a music activity, and then a social worker takes them out to terrace where they can go outside. They encourage them to go out and walk around and do that kind of thing. On one of the walls down there they have what I would call a busy board. It's like things that you would manipulate, like a screwdriver or a wrench where you can turn bolts, like a little steering wheel that you can steer around, so there are different items that you manipulate and do different things with, like eye-hand coordination type things. The rooms are small, but they don't really need to have a large room of their own because if they want to do activities, they can go out in that big open activity room. It's mostly a bed and a dresser. They have a nice little closet where they can fit their clothing and things. There's a bathroom with a shower, and they can take showers there in their own space. The flooring is nice. It's not carpet, which is good, because it's cleaner than what it would be with a carpet. The rooms seemed very clean. I was impressed with it.

Salem Terrace was good, but we chose another facility because it was a little bit better. The staff was very nice and very engaging with patients. They did have cafeteria-style, but we think that it is better that the residents are served rather than go to a line, and the food seemed good.

We went to Salem Terrace. They were all wonderful. I really like that. I was really impressed with them because they took all the time in the world with us during the visit. The staff was dressed very professionally. We did go to the dementia unit and it was fully staffed. There were people one-on-one and they were assisting their residents, walking around with them and doing things with them. There was nobody just sitting around. They also showed us where people could have family members in if they wanted to have a little get-together. The lobby area was very clean, the carpets were spotless, and there was no hint of odor, which is a biggie for me. They would immediately clean their rooms. I was really impressed that there was shadow box on the front of each room. They have a library, a beauty parlor, a theater room and internet room, which was a big thing for my sister-in-law. They also played bingo there. They have two dining areas. They showed us the menu and it looked like they had a wonderful selection where they could choose.