Brookdale Skyline

perry c

May 19, 2022

My husband was in Brookdale's memory care unit. 1. He was initially not entered into the computer system correctly which resulted in him missing medications for days and not having a shower for over a week after admission. They also lost an entire month’s supply of a heart medicine that we gave to the director on admission. 2. I brought him three pairs of spare eye glasses and showed them to the health and wellness director on admission. A month later, on a visit, I was told that he had lost a nose pad on his glasses. When I examined him, he was missing the nose pad and the metal prong to which the pad attaches had eroded into his nose, which was scabbed, and had surrounding redness. No one had given him one of his three pairs of spare glasses, no one had notified me, no one had even covered the prong with a piece of tape. They did notice that pad was missing but did nothing to fix the situation This was typical of the care. 3. While the clients were being fed in their rooms due to Covid, there was concern because he was not eating. My daughter (living out of state) agreed to zoom while he was eating. She watched an aide bring in a closed box of food and plop it on his table. He didn’t know to open it. The aide came back and said she didn’t have time to open the box. Due to his Alzheimer’s my daughter couldn’t communicate to him to open it. It took over an hour to get someone from the floor to come down and open the box so that he could have his meal… 4. There were numerous medication errors, some of which could have been lethal if he were a small person 5. No one knew who was responsible for trimming Alzheimer’s patient’s nails. Confirmed at 1/18/21 meeting with Brookdale CEO, head of assisted living, head of Health and Wellness, and head of Brookdale at home ( I mentioned that my husband’s fingernails were long and dirty) 6. We chose Brookdale because he could take his little dog and he could be taken swimming. Prior to admission, we agreed to pay a lot extra to their Brookdale at home service for the dog’s care and to have my husband taken to the swimming pool. Once he was admitted, we found out that the Brookdale at home service did not have enough staff and he was never taken swimming and after a month we had to bring the dog home due to neglect (not given water/food, taken out as agreed). 6. Billing was a disaster. His bills were initially sent to HIM on the Alzheimer’s unit and then I received an angry call because his bills weren’t paid. The Brookdale sales person and then the head of Brookdale at Home on admission initially quoted $29/ hour for Brookdale at home services (for dog care, for taking him swimming etc) then over 3 months later I am told it is $40 per hour if under an hour, but looking back at a previous month’s bill I was charged $44 per hour regardless whether over or under one hour of service. Billing time frequently did not reflect actual worked hours as listed on the itemized bill. One example; a staff worked form 11:30-12:30 (1 hour) but I was billed 5 hours. 7. Several months prior to moving into Brookdale, I discussed the plan for behavioral problems as behavioral issues are common with Alzheimer’s patients (my husband had no behavioral issues before moving). I was assured care could be managed and that if he developed Behavioral issues, the process would be that he would be transported to the hospital where medication could be stabilized and then he could be returned to facility. He did develop behavioral issues and they would not transfer him to a psychiatric hospital but instead threw him out of the facility and we had to scramble to get him placed elsewhere… I would not recommend this facility for dementia care.