Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove

R.W.F.

My father has been in Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove for a week. It needs some updating. The staff is very pleasant. They are very attentive. But with the amount of money that they request per month, I think they need some updates. There should be a lot more communication between billing and the billing department. Overall, my father is comfortable where he is, and so far, he likes it. My father's room is fine. The maintenance works from Monday through Friday. However, I think the residents suffer a little bit in the evenings and on the weekends when maintenance is not there, especially the residents who need more care, so that has been a concern of mine. With regards to food, my father seems to like the food, and he likes communicating with the other residents during mealtimes. I think the dining room could use a little bit more updating though. With regards to activities, for what my father would be interested in, I think it is catered more to the female residents as opposed to the male residents. I wish they had more activities that were male and veteran-centered.

Sherry

Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove seemed to be very clean. I liked it very much. The people on the desk were very friendly and open, and the representative who took us on the tour was very nice and friendly. Everyone we met, the nurses, and the therapists that were there were very nice, friendly, and accommodating, too. They showed me their cafeteria and their exercise room. They have an inside porch that faces a lake and there's a swan in there. It was a pleasant visit. There is a friend of my mother's who is already there and she said the food was good. I understand they had a jazz ensemble there, and it was very good. They go out on outings as well. It was a fair value for the money.

ReviewerFC030324A

Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove had the homiest atmosphere of any of the places I visited. It also is the least expensive of any of them. It has no outdoor facilities or campus, but it has a beautiful dining room overlooking a pond and a nice view of the outside. It just didn't appeal to me. The hallways were narrow, but I was very impressed by their hominess. People who were living there were, "Oh, hello. How are you?" It's a small facility, which can have its drawbacks, but it can also have its pluses. It's not as desirable as the others. It uses hydroponics to grow their own food. They had a big refrigerator kind of thing and they showed us how they're able to grow lettuce and spinach and pick from that all the time, so that on the health spectrum, it would rate highly, particularly with today's emphasis on eating fresh. That is one of their big things, but they wouldn't have the activities and they don't have a live-in doctor or medical center.

PA

We visited Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. It's clean, and they have very friendly staff, but they need to disclose something very important. We had paid the down payment on it, and then we heard from someone else that you have to sign a two-year agreement. That was never mentioned. So, we went back, and their reasoning was that most people want to stay, and they want to be settled down. We said, "Yeah, but if we don't like it, we're still locked in and that is not something we want." So, we put a stop-payment on that quick and decided not to go with that. It's a beautiful facility, and the staff was nice. We were impressed with the dining area. They use cloth napkins and cloth table covers. You look out on a small lake out there with the ducks and swans. So, it was a beautiful atmosphere. They do have a greenhouse in the area, and they plant and eat their own vegetables, so that was a plus. They have activities. I rate them a four overall because of the disclosure. Also, there was a question that we asked, about the security of the patients in and out of their room, if some of them maybe mingle into another patient's room because they do have dementia. That's not unreasonable to think they may do that, but her response was, "Oh, no, that doesn't happen. We keep the doors locked." When she said that, it does ring a bell with us. You keep them locked, that's unsafe. The dementia person that's confused doesn't know how to get out of that room. She said she will get back to us about the locking process on the room. When you're the administrator, that's something you would know. We know our families won't be there every day, and just like my dad was with somebody every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it's not going to be a person that's unattended. But why should we, on a day that we will not come, be worried about how she's going to get out of that room? When we questioned her again, she said they have a key fob. They're a dementia patient, aren't they going to think about what to do with the key fob? We never really got clarity on that.

Provider Response

Mark

I went to Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. It was a very tranquil place to be so close to the city. There was a very nice lake with a nice view for the residents. The tour was very efficient. The staff was professional, accommodating, and personable. It was a very clean facility, and it looked very well maintained. I thought the resident rooms were a bit on the small side, but they were clean and well laid out. They're just smaller than what I was hoping for and smaller than the others I had seen. Willow Grove is like a stone's throw outside of Philadelphia. For the location, it was very tranquil and that lake with the gazebo (where people can go out and sit) is what does it. It was a very nice layout.

Provider Response

John

My wife will be moving to Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. They're in the middle of renovating the whole place, so it looked fine and clean and everything, but it's kind of a mess right now. Everybody seemed nice and everybody was friendly. The rooms were adequately large, and they were a good size for one person. They have a salon, they do trips, they have musicians come. They have these virtual reality things they do with the residents, which are pretty cool, where they actually do trips around the world in that kind of thing. What really sold me here was that when you walk in someplace, it just feels right, and it just felt right. My wife, she's very young, she's only 56, and most of the places don't have any young people. But they have a bunch of young people there, so I felt a lot more comfortable there. It's more like a hotel, where you have the hallways and the common area in the middle.

Provider Response