05.02.07

Assisted Living Facilities in Texas

Posted in Assisted Living at 11:59 am by admin

Finding A Good Quality Assisted Living Facility In Texas

We have gone out of our way to find the best Assisted Living Facilities in a particular town. We are starting off with Tyler Texas as this town is known for a well established medical community with world class doctors.

The Fall Of A Once Good Assisted Living Community

When sending your parent or loved one to an Assisted Living Facility you want to make sure they will enjoy their stay and receive quality care. The way these facilities usually work is a big investment on the initial construction of the facility and eye appealing services and ammenities on the up start.  As the facility ages the management will usually let things go as well as start to scrimp on other things as well.

Neglect of the elderly is far to common due to the forgetfulness of the seniors living in these facilities and the children of these parents not really being told or notified about this neglect. Generally what will happen is the care worker staff will go to a skeleton staff due to bonus incentives brought down from upper management to the Executive Directors and managers of these care centers.

Care Workers Few And Far Between

As the care staff is brought down to around 2 care workers for every 60 residents you end up seeing some fatigue set in with the workers and the residents end up being left in their depends for several hours unattended too. This behavior goes on for days, then weeks, and even years.  The neglect of proper grooming, showering, and being paid close attention to most often happens at night. The elderly are frequently left in their soiled clothes all night while the skeleton staff sleeps through the night.

Many times when being given a tour of an assisted living facility you will see posted on the wall something to the affect of there being 4 care givers and 1 on call person for every 60 residents.  These numbers represent a close proximity to what you would normally see advertised. What a well established assisted living facility will usually do is to have 2 care givers and a call in person that rarely is asked to come in even during times when there is a no show. The justification is given in that the managers on duty are there to step in in case of an emergency.


The problem with this logic is that the elderly in these facilities are neglected up until the point they have fallen or are dropped only after the fact.  Leaving one or two care workers to work 60 residents in an assisted living facility makes for a very dangerous environment for your loved ones.  The managers almost always only step in after an ambulance has been called or it is too late.

Who Is Recommended Right Now As A Quality Elder Care Facility In Texas?

Finding a facility with workers who generally care for the elderly is very important. Having enough care workers on staff at all shifts is very important as well to avoid neglect of the residents.

The Good And Bad Ones

In Tyler Texas we have only a few Assisted Living facilities to choose from. There is Prestige Estates, Atria Willow Park, Pinehurst and Azalea Trails. We did a walk through in both Atria Willow Park and Azalea Trails. Azalea Trails received good reviews by two different residents we visited, an ex-care worker, and no bad reports as of yet by the Department of Aging.  Azalea Trails is a new facility so it will take time to see how their history of care to the elderly will be. We found Atria Willow Park to be lacking in care staff but the facility itself was a nice facility. Through the Freedom of Information Act we have found that they have several violations with the Department of Aging as well as with OSHA.

Azalea Trails Assisted Living Facility

Azalea Trails Assisted Living Facility is another facility we did a walk through and tour. We found this facility to be run by professional staff who seem to generally care about the residents who stay there. They serve only heart healthy food and the care staff to residents ratio was well within reason. They have a facility specifically designed with alzheimers patients in mind. They provide med staff training for all their workers to avoid giving your loved one the wrong medication as too often happens in facilities that have a high turn over with the care staff and a lack of quality training.

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