House of Hope Alzheimer's Care Omaha, NE

We went to the House of Hope Alzheimer's Care. We saw the locked-down facility. The director forgot that we had an appointment or wasn't aware of our appointment, so we had to wait a few minutes for her. And we initially walked into the facility. It's kind of dark and I wasn't highly impressed when we first walked in. We walked to her office and she took us into the lockdown area for memory care. So these are people who are severely memory impaired. That was a lot lighter and brighter, but the general lobby area was very, very dark when we first walked in, so it was kind of gloomy. It wasn't as nice. It felt a little bit too clinical, more like a hospital. But then when we went into the, um, the memory care facility, it was a lot lighter and brighter, so okay, we're good. It still felt a little bit too clinical, more like a hospital or a hospital clinic. However, there were patients in multiple gathering rooms. Some were watching TV, some were chit- chatting, and some were out of their rooms but were totally out of it, and couldn't tell a thing. They had another area where people were just sitting and quietly doing things like puzzles or I don't know what they were doing, but doing other stuff. They also had some crafts on the wall in their main community area, and she told us that they do crafts and exercise and whatever. And so those were some of the crafts on the wall. There was also an area where they could go outside, which was very contained. So they couldn't get out and wander away. And there was a nice little yard area, and a couple of people were out there. And so that part was very nice. The apartment itself was very small. So it was just a sitting/living area. No kitchenette or anything like that. A bathroom and then a bedroom. It was a very small bedroom and a very small sitting room. They had a nice fifties diner where people can schedule their family parties there. And that was really cool. The exterior of the facility is a gorgeous land, gorgeous property, beautiful. It was a big brick, colonial-style building, probably built maybe just from 1910 to 1920, and so it was an older building. But because of that, inside they could have upgraded the carpet in the last 40 years. They could have upgraded the wall, it seemed like they had dark wood paneling or something that just made it dark. They could have upgraded some of that stuff and made it look a lot cleaner and fresher and more inviting.