Park Place

Ryan3

Two weeks ago, my grandpa had a mild heart attack. He spent three days in the hospital and got cleared to go home, but while he was there it was suggested he go into a residential facility so he could be monitored. He is 87 and doesn't like to use "new-busy body stuff(aka-technology). He refused a first response transmitter and a cell phone with one touch emergency calling. I offered to cover half the cost of in-home nursing care, but he said he would rather "save" me the money and live at a facility. I scheduled walk throughs in a couple of places, one day was in Watertown, SD where he was and the second, per his request, was near my home in Atlantic, IA. We walked through a facility near him where he had a good friend and if he had stayed there he would have picked there. However, when we came up, we walked through a couple of nursing homes, then we went to Park Place. Really, Park Place is more like apartments with an RA(like from college), they check up on you and make sure you and your room are ok. He liked the independence of his own room and his own property(you rent a room rather than pay the facility and get assigned one. They are near a park as well as having a nice commons room with tons of stuff, like a nice TV, a couple of computers, tables for cards and a bus daily to the YMCA. He ultimately decided on Park Place, because it wasn't too invasive, but he had the security of having people around. Because of this he accepted a little alert pendant that beeps when you push it to call for help. Now my kids can visit grandpa and my grandpa is closer to me which is what he wanted.The staff was nice, but as I said, they are more supervisors and RA's then in touch nurses. They all are nurses, but they also have a Doctor on call 24 hours a day in case of emergency. He moved in Wednesday of last week after all of the paperwork went through. We talk daily and he seems to be liking it, he enjoys not having to deal with "meddlers" all the time and likes his privacy. He knows he has people around so he won't get lonely. He seems happy after a week.