Continuing Care Retirement Communities Communities in Ankeny, IA

"Deerfield was wonderful. My mother wanted to go back there, but they had no availability. They had a lot of activities. The nurses and assistants were very attentive. I really liked it. They had a huge dining hall. I was very impressed with it. She had a private room. It was very nice and homey. "

"Edgewater, A WesleyLife Community, is beautiful. It's lovely. Wonderful food, good floor plans, and nice staff. The facilities are great. They have all the high-end facilities, like movie theater projection stuff and computer availability. You got everything there. The person who toured me around was friendly and open and wanting to be of help. I tried the food, and it was excellent quality. They had the regular dining room plus a snack place."

"Green Hills Retirement Community was very nice. I am pretty sure it's new. The apartments were buy in and sell it on your own, which I didn't really care for. The dining area was lovely. It was like a restaurant with nice menus and good food. They had an exercise room, transportation, entertainment, and access to many choices. It was around $250,000, plus there's rent on top of that, and everything cost extra. The staff was very nice. "

"When my parents moved from an apartment at NC I came to understand that the name Northcrest Community was an apt name, as I felt the care and support of true community during that transition. The care my parents received was exceptional and the staff is very loving, kind, patient. They take time to pop into the resident's rooms to visit with the resident in addition to typical care. Rooms were spacious and pleasant. As a couple, my parents had two rooms each across the hall from each other. One of the rooms they used as a bed room and the other a sitting room, so that it felt more like an apartment."

"My mother-in-law moved to Northridge Village. The food is very good and they have a wide variety. It was well-prepared and very tasty. The building I think is seven years old. It's very clean, very well-maintained, and has big windows in the apartments, and nice big open hallways. There's a lot of activities to do. They have a concierge which is very helpful, a big dining room for independent living, and a separate one for assisted living and skilled nursing. There's something offered almost every day except Sundays, but they have people come in to do music. They have a full-time activity person who just arranges all kinds of things, whether it's adult coloring or games, puzzles, or outings, and people coming in to do travelogs. They've always got something going on, like parties and exercise classes. I'm very impressed with the staff. I think it's a good value, especially for the people who can participate in a lot of the activities."

"My relative is a resident of The Village. It's very clean. He's very well kept, and he has very good care. He's always clean and looks clean. They get him up and around, and he likes the food a lot. I really do like it a lot. We were just thinking maybe if we could find something cheaper, but considering they have the nursing home right there also, we just kind of decided that might be best. I have tried the food and it is good. He doesn't participate in activities because that's just him, but they do have them. I can't say a lot, but I know they've asked him. He likes to go out, watch TV, sit and visit, and stuff."

"Eastern Star Masonic Home was quite full. They were very busy with the residents who were active. They have daily activities with the activity director. They’ll like to go shopping on one day or go fishing, just different things. I didn’t have much interaction with the staff but they seemed to be responsive to the calls that came for them. Their meals were well-rounded and balanced. It seemed like a pleasant and very friendly place and there were people sitting in the sun. The grounds are beautiful. They have a lot of flowers and bird activity outside the residents’ windows. The rooms and apartments looked clean and neat. "

"We moved to the independent living community of Wesley Park Centre in Newton. It's a lovely place. We are on the third floor, and there are balconies to a lot of the apartments, but we do not have a balcony. We do have a beautiful scene out our windows. We are enjoying the independent living part because we can come and go as we please. You're walking distances that you normally don't walk, so you get lots of exercise, too. The people here are also very friendly. They provide about one meal a day, so you can pick whether that's going to be lunch or dinner in the formal dining room, or out at the small bistro that's open from 8 to 4. You could get breakfast there if you prefer. You can always purchase the other meals, and they just get added to your account. We've been in the formal dining room twice, and both times, the food was very good. I heard they are going to change their meal program. They said that instead of having one meal free for the day, they're going to give you an allotment of the money, and they are going to make all of the food in the bistro and dining room have a price on it. You can pick what you want, and they'll serve a couple of main entrees every night, so we'd have several things to pick from. If you don't use the allotment up, you will lose it for the month when you start with a new one. However, they're putting up a little convenience store type of thing where they would have supplies you might need, like toilet paper or paper towels, maybe some boxed cereal or something that wouldn't expire right away. If you had say $10 or $15 left over, instead of it going to waste, you could purchase these items there. That way, you wouldn't be losing money. It is a continuing care facility, and everything is located in the same building, with just different tunnels that go to different places. There's also an underground tunnel that goes right to the hospital next door, so if you had to go to the hospital, you wouldn't have to go outside. One of the other nice things about that place is that they have underground parking, so we all have underground parking and just take the elevator up to our rooms. The staff that I have met has been wonderful. They were remodeling our apartment before we moved in, and a couple of things had not arrived, but the maintenance was very conscious to make sure that we had things that we could use. She was also very helpful to stop by and collect some of the packing boxes and stuff that we had unpacked and get rid of them for me. I haven't really met the chefs or anybody that actually does the cooking, but all the aides that deliver the food have been very friendly, very nice, and very sociable. The people here have also been very helpful like when we left the dining room, and they showed us where we could check for activities or do something like that. For activities, they have different card games going on at different times and on different days. They have exercise activities going on all the time, too. There are also bus trips to Des Moines or to restaurants to eat out, so there are outings that you can go on."