Forest Hills Place Cleveland Heights, OH

Forest Hills Place has two different buildings and one was for memory care at different levels. I spoke with a couple of people and I was very impressed with the lady that I spoke with, and I've spoken with her several times. She said that with mom's condition, she would need more of a nursing facility. I was impressed with her. Since then, she has been very helpful and continues to be helpful when we have questions. She's in charge of marketing and admissions. In the assisted living, they had a two-bedroom and had a little living room area and so forth. You could bring your own things if you wanted to. In memory care, the room already had everything it needed. I was impressed that many of the residents were out and about and doing various things. They had different activities for them. The staff knew everyone that we passed by or saw by name and they knew everything about them. The care was very personal. We liked it. The staff was great. I saw a menu and they had choices. She said a lot of times, people who need memory care like to feel they're independent, even if it's just something as simple as being able to select from the menu, which was kind of interesting. They had an atrium on the outside of one of the buildings. Each building has three floors and the one with the highest level of memory care had a dining room by itself. Although the dining areas weren't as fancy as the others with all the tablecloths and things, I felt they were quite adequate.

My father has moved into Forest Hills Place. So far, he's doing OK. The staff is very pleasant for the most part, but I don't think they have enough staff. Things will be good if they had more staff, but what they have there do a good job and work hard. I go in in the morning and make sure my dad is set up for the day in the common area for lunch and everything. It just lets me know that he's not in his room all day and I think they make a real effort to get him involved in activities. They have activities, so I like that. I just would like to see them have more staff available to them. They have an hour where they read the bible to him, they have current events, they have happy hour last week where they played different rhythm and blues music and they have snacks, and they have an exercise class. My dad will be getting physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy and they have those right there onsite, which is nice. They had a family game night just this past Thursday. They do a lot of activities and that's what I like and I also like that it seems to be very culturally diverse. He is in assisted living with memory care. I have tasted the food and it's very good. You could get the standard and you have a choice of the portions as well. The one-bedroom apartment is nice and spacious. The closets are huge. You have your bathroom, your living room, your dining room, and your kitchenette that has a microwave and a full-size refrigerator. My dad is in more of an efficiency-type suite, so you have room for your bed and then you have like a sitting area and a bathroom that you don't share. He has a kitchenette, but his kitchenette has like what you might find in a college dorm room as far as a refrigerator. It's not full-size. He has a nice view of the courtyard from his room. I think they do pretty well with the staff that they have.

I liked the smallness of Forest Hills Place. I like the number of residents they have and just the whole layout; the way it was set up and the function of it. We visited the memory care, and it's a safe unit. They can have their own room and shower. I saw a studio, and it was clean and spacious. There's an activity center with a lot of different stuff, as well as a calendar that showed different times and different activities. They also have a beauty shop, and they go out on different social outings. I met one person, and she was very nice, friendly, and informative. They encourage all the residents to come down to the dining room, but they allow them to eat in their own room if they want.

I chose Forest Hills Place for my husband. I wasn't pleased that it's difficult to reach the people at the office. I had a difficult time. Sometimes the phone didn't work or it will go to voicemail many times, or the auto attendant. My husband was on the 3rd floor memory care, then he moved to the small building at the back which was strictly for memory care. In the main building, the staff was very friendly except for one or two of the nurse aides that I didn't care for, but basically the staff was good. They had activities but it seemed like there was a whole lot of just sitting around. The food was okay, though I didn't like the way they had the nursing assistants to bring out one plate at a time. So I didn't care for the way the food was served and the people sat there and waited for maybe 15-20minutes for their food to come. Also the food service is a little late, and it's the same thing for the back building that's strictly memory care. I just felt that there's a better way to serve people than what they have done. They did a lot of bingo and art activities. I wasn't all that impressed. It seemed like people just sat around after dinner, like they go to dinner at 5:00 and they just go sit in front of the TV. It's just boring same old stuff. Once I saw them watching Godzilla, so I asked someone if they could change it, then I got a little attitude. They need something light, music, positive and fun, not monsters tearing down buildings and stuff so I didn't like that. I didn't feel like my husband was turned every 2 hours when he was bedridden and wheelchair bound, nor did they change him enough.