Brookdale Eden Prairie

My mom is staying there and it’s a terrible place. They are under staffed, not enough people working there, they are forced to work double shifts. Last night they didn’t have a med tech for the evening shift. Some of the employees are very good but overwhelmed. I don’t recommend this place. When you tour the place they lie to you about the activities, they don’t have a activities director. The new director has only been there a few weeks. Very high turnover of employees. I would move my mom if I could but she is now on elderly waiver so she can’t move now.

This place is a terrible. We moved our mother here being told they really want to work with her and take care of her. BS, all they do is keep her drugged up when they are even supposed to, they just want to keep her from agitation episodes. She's only been there two months and her mental health has worsened considerably. Almost the entire staff of caregivers are very lazy, on their phones or can be seen sleeping all the time. My mother has no friends there, and doesn't like most of the staff. A terrible place, you don't want to bring your loved one here. They will decline fast. Some of the cargivers are rude, unfriendly, and are there only to collect a paycheck. It's sad, and it's very hard to find a good, trustworthy memory care facility that truly cares about the residents. There is poor communication between staff and family, especially regarding medication, and when to give it. *Edit* - No, I am not 'working closeley with your management team regarding this' as you stated.

Brookdale Eden Prairie is a very undesirable Long Term Care Facility. We stayed because it was the only place we could find that offered to take care of a pet when the resident couldn't. We struggled with pet care. Many of the staff would not sign the sheet that they fed the dog. We never knew if the dog was fed. The dog’s water bowl was often empty. We had to buy automatic feeders. I paid caregivers 7 days a week to be at Brookdale. They often took care of the dog and did many of the other services I was already paying Brookdale to perform. Many of the staff refused to take care of the dog, for religious reasons, so I don't know why Brookdale offers this service. Some staff did help with the dog, but it was not consistent. The dog was everything to my resident, or we would have moved out sooner. It was extremely difficult to get showers. My resident was often in the same clothes, for days, so she wasn’t getting dressing and peri care. The staff ruined most of my resident’s clothes. The staff destroyed 3 hearing aides. The batteries were always dead. The bed linens were not washed very often. They let OTC medication run out more than once. The staff didn’t follow direct orders from the doctor/PA. Alarms were constantly going off. We discovered hard rock, rap, and hip hop music being played for the residents. To be fair, the original Executive Director did give us several refunds for lack of services and ruined items. She did what she could to help, but the situation never got better. The turnover has been constant. There have been at least 3 Marketing Directors and 3 Health and Wellness Directors. Brookdale was on their 3rd Activities Director when we left. Now a 2nd Executive Director has been hired. There is a chronic acute staffing shortage. When we left, there were no activities going on since there was no one to do activities. One of my caregivers would read and entertain the other residents because there were limited or no activities available. There is a lack of proper Dementia training. Some of the staff are very good, others are helpful but only when directed. There is little to no communication between the staff. Everyone seems to work independently with no information being passed on to the next shift. There was at least one aide that was rude and surly. He would ignore residents requests and refuse to speak to them. He yelled at me in front of management and others for simply asking him to help take care of the dog. Management wouldn’t do anything about his behavior because they need the hours to be covered. One of my caregivers would often find him sitting in darkened rooms instead of on the floor helping residents. After meals are served, the staff leaves the dining room even though there are residents present. Many times my caregivers ended up assisting resident’s when there were no Brookdale staff to be found. They would do whatever they could to help. Basically my caregivers were 2 unpaid employees working for Brookdale. Brookdale states they may be able to take aggressive residents. There is no way to separate the aggressive residents from the rest of the residents. One of my caregivers witnessed a Health and Wellness director being attacked. One resident allegedly pushed another resident causing her to fall. He is the same resident that threatened to kill my resident and caregiver one evening. There was no RN that was reachable that night. Brookdale is required by law to have an RN on duty and reachable. I called the police. There was no one to let him in and Brookdale didn't provide the police with the correct entry code. Brookdale has a fall monitoring system. It took 14 minutes for the staff to respond when my resident fell one day. They immediately started moving my resident without an assessment. The aides were pulling her up by her arms before supporting her back, and no gait belt was used. The aides had her walking and only took vitals after they put her in the bed. This is very condensed. I have 3 inches of documentation. It would be a mistake to put your loved one at Brookdale.