Review of The Oaks at Woodfield

1 Star User Review

My dad was in the Alzheimer's unit at the Oaks at Woodfield in Grand Blanc for several months in 2013. He was able to ambulate throughout the unit, and one day wandered into another resident's room and took a fall, fracturing both his shoulder and his femur. I was not there when this happened, not sure where the staff was or what they were doing at that time, but I do know that falls can happen. After his surgery to repair his femur bone, (his shoulder was not able to be surgerically repaired or casted due to the location of the fracture), he returned to the Oaks, but had to be moved to a different section due to the fact that he was now receiving therapy. We did not have any type of a care conference reguarding his therapy and were not told of his discharge date from therapy. We found out he came off of therapy because I ran into one of the therapist who had told me he came off therapy a few day ago. He was then transferred back to his room in the Alzheimer's unit. My mom was there during lunch time and helped my dad with his meals. There were 2 other women besides my dad that were not able to eat well on their own. One ladies husband was there during some of her meals to assist her to eat, the other lady, the staff would take a spoon full of food or give her a bite of her sandwich to get her started, and that was all they were supposed to do to help her to eat. One of the residents noticed my dad wasn't eating well on his own and was talking to a male CENA about it (I was in my dad's room at the time, listening to this conversation, and they were outside in the hall). The male CENA told the resident, "You are not allowed to help them to eat and neither are we, only the families can help them". This is when we decided it was time to get my dad out of The Oaks and take him back to an AFC home that we really loved the care, etc, but felt we had to move him into a locked down unit made just for Alzheimer's patients because, at that time, he was mobile enough to possibly get out the door and make it outside and now he was no longer was able to get up without assistance. My mom spoke to a nurse letting her know that we were wanting to move him out of The Oaks and back to the other facility, which she said would not be a problem. However, when we gave them the day were were going to move him, we were told we had to give a 30 day notice. I was furious and asked to speak to the administrator. During the time talking to him, about how they did not assist him and the others that needed help throughout their meal, and telling him if they were not able to properly care for my dad how could they tell us we had to give them a 30 day notice before taking him to another facility that would properly care for him, once the word "neglect" was mentioned, we were told we would no longer need to give the 30 day notice and move he as soon as we could make the arrangements to move him. We moved him, he was checked out by the doctor at the ALF, and was found to have thrush, which may have been part of the reason he was not eating well. I reported all of this to adult protective services, which did not investigate, because from what they said, my dad was no longer being "neglected" as we moved him out of The Oaks to another facility. This was our experience at The Oaks. I would not recommend the Alzheimer's unit if your loved one is requiring some assistance with feeding. Alzheimer's disease is a debilitating disease in which those affected require more and more assistance for their activities of daily living as the disease progresses, which includes feeding!