116 Residential Care Homes near New Galena, PA. Page 4

They were beyond wonderful. It was more like a bed & breakfast. Very personal attention given. They were kind & very caring when mom went into hospice and were with het around the clock when we couldn't be there.

Hello. I'm writing to clear up some of the total inaccuracies of the review my sister gave Golden View. To give some background. My mom was living with me from the end of Dec. 2014 until Aug. 2018. Considering I live alone and work full-time things went pretty well. Thank God for a wonderful next door neighbor that helped me with caring for my mom. In the beginning of 2018 my mom's condition worsened. Her cognitive level was now to the point where she could no longer follow story lines of her favorite TV shows. Along with having dementia my mom would halucinate as well. Prior to this point in time the hallucinations were endearing. She would hear the chorus singing across the street all day long, she imagined cute little friends, Louie, Jose', Zeka, yes ... you remember the Zeka virus. The hallucinations now in the beginning of 2018 were turning more aggressive and hostile in nature. She would imagine things coming from the ceiling and attacking her while lying to go to sleep. She would believe her cousins that passed years ago were trying to kill her. She wouldn't eat and went from weighing 130-140 lbs. to 97 lbs. in a half a year. I hired a part-time care giver to be with her and try to engage her to keep her from these hostile hallucinations. She now was to the point where she thought poison was in her food and wouldn't eat or drink and wouldn't get out of her bed. I would try talking to her and she would cry "I don't understand words". Didn't know who I was or even who she was. The feeling of despair and that this was my mom's time was undeniable! I took her to the emergency room and after a battle they got her to settle down. Knowing that the day would come that I couldn't have her stay with me I was doing a little research and went to and called some nursing homes. What appealed to me about Golden View was they specialized with only memory care patients and at that time only the capacity for eight residents. They had 2 and most of the time 3 people on staff to care for the residents so the ratio of care givers to residents was very high and I knew she would receive a lot more one on one attention. In a bigger place my feeling was she would get lost in the crowd and the general feel of the environment would be much more clinical. Where as Golden View's home environment would feel much warmer and inviting. So based on my rapport with G.V. my decision was to place her there. Upon arriving at G.V. the nurse immediately got my mom on hospice care. The renown geriatric doctor that cares for the residents at G.V. got her on the proper medication to combat the hallucinations. My mother started eating, gained back all her weight and then some! Bathed everyday! I would often see the G.V. staff sit with the residents spending 30 minutes or so spoon feeding them a meal so they would get nourishment. I've witnessed them take a couple of residents who I thought were having their last weeks and turned them to live many months with some measure of quality. From Aug. 2018 until March when the Corona virus hit I would visit 3 to 4 times a week, every week, and my mom was singing, dancing, had children visiting, playing games, and had a family home type environment. I invite you to visit the G.V. website to view the videos and photos to see for yourselves. Due to the choices and decisions made by the staff at G.V. they turned my mom around and gave her the best happiest times in years. For this I'm grateful ??. I want to make it perfectly clear at no time whatsoever was there any conversation of any kind between G.V. personnel and myself about paying money so I could go see my mom when she had covid. I paid G.V. $6500 in the beginning of May because that was the monthly fee that was due the 1st of each month. Both the doctors from the hospital and the geriatric doctor felt my my mom's best chance for recovery was to go back to G V. in her familiar environment and be placed on hospice again. So when she was released by the hospital sometime in the first week of May I followed the doctor's advice and had her taken back to G.V. It was hospice personnel that instructed me I would be allowed to go in and visit my mom when she arrived back at G.V. not anyone from G.V. I also wanted to point out that my mom was on an oxygen tank and was in no condition at all to talk with anyone on the phone. Whenever any staff entered my mom's room they had to be wearing a protective white suit that takes considerable time to put on and take off. It wasn't as if they could just wipe a phone and hand it to her. My mom had several serious health issues. Heart, lung, digestive, and senile degenerative brain disease. These factors at her age along with the isolation and no visitors was too much for her to overcome. Covid-19 has turned the entire medical community and all of our lives upside down! Especially in the earliest stages of the epidemic. We're still trying to find our way as there's controversy among the medical experts. At this time testing was hardly available or accurate and G.V. did as advised by the medical doctors and the CDC, which was to treat any symptoms and the residents as if they had the virus. To blame G.V. or the doctors is beyond me. My mom lived to 93 years of age. Her name was [name removed].

My mother enjoyed her time at Pond View. It became home to her and a second home to the rest of the family. The staff truly cared for mom, yet respected her independence and supported her when she needed help.