Charter Senior Living of Columbia

Overall a good experience. While a bit expensive it's mostly in line with similar communities in the immediate area. It is nice that's it all memory care and has easy access to outside areas. The food service has improved lately with the hiring of a new head chef.

My mother is currently a resident here, and overall it is a great facility. The people at all levels from the management to the floor nurses all seem to care and treat the residents with respect. Several of the nurses go out of their way to say hello to my mom when they start their shifts, and ask her how she is doing. The food is decent, and they have activities to keep people entertained. They also do field trips for the residents. There are a few minor issues I have noticed. Sometimes the person who helps my mom get ready in the morning forgets to do some minor things (nothing too important). And all the residents with varying degrees of impairment are mixed together. That could be a positive or a negative, depending on your point of view, but my mom has told me that sometimes the odd behavior of other residents with more severe impairments makes her uncomfortable. But overall, I would definitely recommend this facility.

This is the best community and best care of the residents. The staff was phenomenal. The staff's willingness to make things happen to satisfy the wishes of myself and my wife was outstanding. The communication was exception during the stay here.

This community is great at communicating with the families. They seem to take great pride in treating your family member with respect. They truly seem to love the residents. The activities will have musician come play, parties, food, themes to help connect people within the community. I feel like they are opened to talk to you and they aren't hiding anything.

Our mother had previously been in a bad situation, but she's doing well here, so my perception might be skewed. They people are friendly and they seem to care about their residents.

[Removed] Dimmed lighting to dumb the residents down and make dirt harder to see. The staff have clever little things that they tell you that *seem* spontaneous but are actually carefully crafted phases and buzzwords, cute and phoney.<br />Like dog food, what you're buying is a product that's cleverly packaged and slickly advertised. Do you really love the person you're considering leaving at Somerford? If yes, then find a smaller establishment where a person will have some dignity.

I would give their food a four. My concern was that when I toured it seemed like they made it sound that they would place my loved one with other men and with those that were experiencing a comparable level of Alzheimer's. However they are set up more in a general population sort of arrangement. This means that the more severe residents are mixed in with the more functional ones, and I don't think my loved one was ready for that quite yet. It would be nice if they were more up front with that. I did like the flexibility, and the opportunities for the family to participate.

It was excellent, I highly recommend it! We used the respite services for two weeks. The staff is really excellent, everyone who works there is great. I would use them again, I am very pleased, I would use them for a permanent placement too. They are a little on the expensive side. It is strictly Alzheimer's and dementia. They have 64 beds in four neighborhoods with a central area, where they can do activities and where they offer services. They have a very nice outdoor area, with a lot of freedom for the individual. Everything is done like it would be at home for serving food. They were able to take care of her extremely well.

It has been pretty good. The staff has been really responsive. There haven't been any complaints about the food or the laundry so far. Sara was amazingly supportive. The location was good for our family. Once we visited them they were the hands down winner for where to go.

She settled in extremely well, we were very impressed with the program. We were quite happy to see the levels of activity that the staff had the folks doing there. If her resources had been more extensive we would have left her there. They handle advanced dementia and Alzheimers patients, so the level of care is a little higher which makes the price go up a little. She seemed quite happy with the food. She didn't really want to leave.

We were looking for a community that was more specific to Alzheimer care. The approach they have here at Somerford seemed to be the best approach for our situation. We like that it is a smaller community because we thought a larger community would be confusing and intimidating to someone with Alzheimer. Due to its size it allows for ease of getting around so it is very easy to navigate. Somerford has been great and we would recommend them to anyone.

nice facility.