The Best Independent Living Communities in Wood County, OH

"I liked Alexis Gardens very much. It seemed that it was a nice happy place. The food was good. They had a puzzle room, a library, an exercise room, and a game room with a pool table and a shuffle board. They have giant playing cards. "

"The tour was very good. I really liked it. My family wasn't too happy because it's out of town. I looked at the studio, and it was small, but they had enough little rooms outside that you could sit and relax off the hallway, do puzzles, play cards, and whatever. I was really impressed with that. Everything was clean and shiny. I didn't see any dust or anything. The windows looked nice. The staff member was very pleasant, friendly, and nice. Everybody that we ran into in the hall talked to her. Everybody seemed to know her and like her. She was very good at showing me the different things and different sections."

"My sister and I were very impressed with The Heritage Inn. We both had someone who was at that facility for some period of time, so we knew of it, and we knew it was very highly rated. We were just blown away by how wonderful and beautiful a home they provide for so many different people. The staff was very helpful, very comforting, and very wonderful. The whole experience was very good. The rooms were kind of open, like you have a good feeling of being able to breathe there. I know a lot of places they have very small bedrooms, and they are almost claustrophobic. Also they allow patients to bring some of their own furniture if they so wish. They encourage them to hang pictures on the wall. They were very homey. We had a meal at The Heritage Inn, and it was very nice and very delicious. They have a dietitian on staff who can take care of certain diets that must be kept. Food all tasted good. The one thing that was a negative about this place was that they do not take Medicaid patients, and that was important to us. "

"Ohio Living Swan Creek was a very nice building. The residents were taken care of very well by the staff. I saw a few that were very kind and very good. They were good. It is a nice place. It's clean. I looked at the menu, and the people that were eating there seemed to be fine."

"Lutheran Village at Wolf Creek was a nice facility. They had an entirely independent living building. I did not tour this facility, but it was a fairly new complex. The unit that I was in was a rehab room. They have a rehab wing where you can go for short-term care, and then there are people who are living longer term but would need some kind of nursing care or overseeing. They have a nice chapel, nice lobby and social areas, and a nice therapy room, and the people were very warm and welcoming. All the rooms were private and were very nice. The thing that was impressive in their memory care unit that I did not find in any of the other facilities I visited -- most of the facilities are going to alarms and they would be prepared to handle somebody who would be a wanderer. They do not put these alarms on all individuals; they use the alarm if needed. But they could put alarms on the back of the wheelchair and attached to a person’s shirt, and if they tried to get up then it would just connect because of the magnet attached. And they also could put a magnet underneath the seat of a wheelchair or a chair which would indicate if the person tried to get out or lifted their weight that would alarm the staff that the person was trying to get out. They have alarms that would be placed on the walls that would indicate the person in the room is moving about, and if there was somebody who was not supposed to be moving about alone, that would signal the nursing staff that they needed to come. They are one of the few that still could put a bed alarm and would still put a bed alarm on if it was necessary to indicate a shift in weight or that the person had left the bed, so that they would come. They were very safety oriented, and I was impressed with that. I thought that they were extremely concerned about the safety of their personnel particularly in the memory care unit. If you want to stay there full time, their long term residents are on the second floor in this one wing or in another wing. You don’t go there with the assumption you never have to leave because they re-evaluate again to see if they would be a good fit for their facility. Not that they don’t take Alzheimer’s or memory care people, they take men, women, all faith, all color, all health problems, but if there is an individual who they really feel would not be a good fit and might upset the balance of their more permanent community, they feel that in the best interest of that particular patient and of their current residential individuals that they should re-evaluate, and if there would be a better facility for them somewhere else, they discuss that with the family. There were a lot of people moving around in the facility, both men and women, wheelchairs, walkers, otherwise. They have a little pantry store if people wanted to go down and purchase from a little store, but if they were not able to get out they kind of have basics as far as whether it is food or hygiene or other kinds of products or they would get things for them. You could go to the dining room or choose to eat in the rooms. "

"Reynolds Senior Village was a manufactured home community. It was handicapped-accessible. It was more like a rented home. It was nice because the rent was not that expensive, but they didn't have a nurse on call. It had stairs. The only good thing about it was that it was an open community where you could stand outside and have your own space. I spoke to the staff several times over the phone, and when I came in, she knew exactly who I was. She showed me around, and she was accommodating. No meals are included. The facility was clean."

"My mother lives in The Woodlands at Sunset House. She is in a two-bedroom, two-bath home with fireplace and cathedral ceilings. It is gorgeous. It's 2100 square feet and way more than she needs. They provide breakfast and dinner. There's a hairdresser on site while they bring in bookmobiles and local banks. They provide transportation to grocery stores every week and to and from doctor's appointments. My mother loves the food. The staff is wonderful and very helpful. There is a low turnover, with the exception of the young people that work in the dining room in the evenings since a lot of them are college students. The core staff is the same all the time. It is the most expensive in our community, but they do a good job. They have an activities director and they have movies twice a week, they bring in musicians, hold a cocktail hour every other Friday night, and trips to local restaurants or the theater. Pets are allowed, as many as you would like, as long as you are capable of taking care of them."

"I went here and checked out their assisted living and memory care. It was clean and they're very, very friendly. I think one of the other things I found very appealing was that the staff has been there for several years. So to me, that tells me it is a good working environment. They're very knowledgeable as well, and I liked their process when taking care of their residents. It's very well planned and thought out. I also liked the fact that the rooms were all private. You have plenty of space to accommodate a good number of family members. So, if you can't take your family member out, there's a place for you to stay. It's very comfortable and very inviting. When I visited, they were doing bingo and some kind of activity/games with the residents with snacks and things like that."

"Kingston Care Center of Sylvania is close to my house, and it's very clean. The staff is very friendly. My dad is a picky eater, but he's eating a little bit of the food, so I guess it's OK. They seem to take pretty good care of their facility and their patients, so we're happy with it. "

"We chose to have Mom at The Lakes of Sylvania because she was there for rehab, so the transition from there to assisted living was easy for her as she was familiar with the staff and the caregivers. The facility allowed us to come in and bring the things that would fit into her room. The employees are very nice. The PT department was excellent. Now that she's in the assisted living, they do crafts, bingo games, and a lot of activities with the family. Every Friday, they have a little happy hour where they get drinks and have music, so they have a fairly active schedule. My mom likes the food. It is awesome. They have a family night very frequently for families to come in, as well as brunches and things where families eat with the residents. It's a fairly new facility compared to the others in the area and athough it could be a little cleaner, it's set up very well. The assisted living rooms are roomy. They have a microwave, a small sink, and a small refrigerator so they can have some of their own things. They are very nice with a great big shower room in it."

"I moved to Luther Haus, and so far I am very pleased. They're all nice and caring people. If they have a maintenance problem they take care of it right away. The atmosphere is very nice here. The staff is very friendly. They have activities in the community room, and the residents get together on their own. They have puzzle rooms and a lounge room where you can just sit and talk. I have seen other places that were quite a bit less expensive but this one has more to offer. It's all one level, and if you have a patio and everything like that, I assume that brings the cost up."

"My sister-in-law has moved into Otterbein SeniorLife Sunset Village. It was the only one that had the amenities that we were looking for. We were looking for assisted living that went into skilled nursing care at the same facility, and they had to revert from private pay to Medicaid, and it was the only one out of all the facilities that we looked at that would do that. Also, they took her because she had already been their patient in Monclova. It was very nice. It has independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing, and so it's all right there in one place, and it was good for that. They have a very nice campus. They have walking trails. Each separate offering is really on the same campus. In other words, independent living is separate from assisted living, and assisted living is separate from skilled nursing. My sister-in-law's room is a studio apartment. It has a bed area. There's space for sitting so she can sit, look out the window or talk on the phone or something. There is a kitchen area, and I use the term loosely because it has a half refrigerator, a sink, and a microwave. There are no other heating units in there, which is good for safety purposes. They have a dining room. They have a faux post office, if you will, where the residents could buy stamps and they had the mailboxes there and everything. They have an activity room that has a full kitchen and that is available for the residents if they want to bake a cake or something. At the end of each hall, they have a sitting area that is like a living room, and that is in addition to the lobby area. They have what they call ice cream social at least three times a week, and that is like a little café where they offer desserts. They have a laundry room on each floor that the residents can use to do their laundry, and there is no charge for that. The washing machines are free. We met the maintenance people, one of the nursing staff, and one of the activity people. We met a fair amount of them. They were good with the residents. I haven't participated in any activities, but they have two or more a day and they have outings where they can take the residents out."

"My in-laws were at The Heritage. It was a very nice place. We really like that place. If something happens where my parents will have to come up to be closer to us, that might be what we'll use, but it just wasn't in their budget right now. They were really good. It was close to us. However, they had personnel changes. When my mother-in-law will get used to somebody, then somebody else would be there. That bothered her a little bit, but everybody was super there. I can't really complain about any of that. They were there for assisted living and memory care. My father-in-law was in the Alzheimer's unit. Overall, they were really good. The food was really good. They weren't always what my mother-in-law liked and it seemed like there were no diet restrictions at all. In the memory care, they had crafts and stuff like that, which my father-in-law did not do, but they tried to keep them busy, and then assisted living, where my mother-in-law was, they had little piano concerts, they did craft, they had bingo, and they did exercise times, which she enjoyed. She really like that sort of thing. They took them out if they wanted to go to ice cream or to different things. They kept them pretty busy if they wanted to be. However, everything is very expensive."

"They really didn’t want to move in Fremont and the Bethany Place where we first visited in March; they had a three to six months waiting list, and so we put them on both waiting list for assisted and independent living. We thought that we are going to go with assisted living. We compared both prices between assisted and independent living. They are still on the waiting list for a 2-bedroom. They had friends living there too, and that’s where they wanted to go. The facility has bingo. They are Catholic, so every Monday they have a community service, and Thursday they have rosary. They have movies and cards. The food is very good; if they don’t like what they are having, they have an alternate. They made completely everything from scratch. There are no preservatives, they have an ice cream anytime they want, and they have a soup anytime they want. "