Brookdale Merrillville

If you are considering an assisted living community for a loved one whose age or other infirmities make independent living an unsafe proposition, then chances are you are looking for reviews about such communities.

Here's the skinny on this community:

Operated and managed by Brookdale Senior Living - a for-profit company and believe me they show their lack of compassion or sincerity at every turn.

Each resident has their own apartment - the quality of each space is more reminiscent of a dormitory room.

Room cleaning and laundry services are part of the basic charge - between filthy carpets, clothes closets left in absolute disarray, improperly washed clothes (read: shrunken, some items lost, some items not belonging to your relative received) and the evidence of theft and damage in the apartments, you probably should consider some kind of undisclosed nanny cam too.

On-site nursing staff seems mostly apathetic, often disagreeable - without your permission, they will place orders for medications, give you last minute notice about meds orders so you must buy from their overpriced in-house pharmacy, attempt to bill you a couple hundred dollars per month for bringing meds in the same packaging which the rest of the world has agreed to use but that they don't like - and here's the real kicker, they will send your relative to the hospital for something as minor as a brief spike in BP (which we all have) or a headache - not because they care but because they want to cover their own 'behinds' legally - for which now you or your relative must shell out several hundred dollars for a mostly un-insured ER visit. They are under the impression that family members work for them - when the opposite ought to be true.

I cannot speak to the quality of dining there as I simply do not eat there.

They administer meds as per doctor recommendation - as far as I can tell, this part is ok.

They will engage your relative and other residents in group activities with an occasional off-site activity; I have never witnessed one personally, so I cannot offer any description.

Often there is a weird odor in that place; I also don't like to see people in wheelchairs left in the middle of the hallway, asleep, and left there like a bag of trash but maybe that's just me.

Finally, it is often frustrating that you go to visit your relative and ring the doorbell and it takes several minutes, literally, to wait for someone to open the door.

As one last remark, please understand I did not visit multiple assisted living communities, hang around them and then decide what the average or 'expected' experience should be. Who has time or means? This is based on personal observation only; and we all know when we feel our loved ones are being mishandled. To their possible credit, I don't think there ever was any evidence of physical violence used on any resident. On the bright side, if you don't care about your loved one and just want 'someone else to deal with it' then this place is great because it is one of the lesser expensive places around.... but you usually get what you pay for and maybe here, quite a bit less.

Thank you.

by Hank, May 2012