Truewood by Merrill, Keller

Sweet people at the front desk. Nice, clean facility. Sweet med techs. Good food options. I would use the term "assisted living" loosely. There are very few caregivers (1 per long hallway), and they are hard to find when resident needs help (assistance). There are even people that live there, that bring in their own personal care givers. So they paid the Truewood sticker price on top of the price of engaging a personal caregiver. Giving a person with memory issues a button to push for help, is silly, because they can't remember to push the button when they need assistance or may not remember to put the button around their neck, or may forget and wear it in the shower and get it wet. Each resident is given a button on a string to wear. Everyone seemed to be put to bed by 5:30pm...straight after dinner, so night times are very quiet. Our resident enjoyed the morning exercise class, if they were reminded to go. Truewood does post the daily activities on the elevator and in the hallway and on a monthly calendar. Other activities were great too, but the residents need reminding or assistance getting there! When hallway caregivers leave the building for their hour long lunch break, there is no one checking in on the residents of that hall or getting them to activities. We would have to call the front desk or go up there ourselves, during that time, if our resident needed assistance. They were good to remind our resident to go to meals, and help them get to the dining room and back. The nurse Brandy, is very inflexible in working with the family. It's her way or the highway. She, from the beginning, acted like she was doing us a favor, allowing our family member to be there. If our resident refused a shower, they would let them go a week or more, with no shower, even though the family asked multiple times for them to be showered a minimum of twice a week. I don't think that's too much to ask, based on the amount of money paid to live there. Due to the lack of assistance in this assisted living, we only lasted there about 3 months. Our family member had a fall and broke their back, while unattended in their room at Truewood. Morning staff did not come in that morning, and our resident was up and about to get to the bathroom with no assistance and fell. Thankfully we had cameras installed so we knew exactly what happened. If you decide to give Truewood a try, I have no doubt you will love a lot about it, however, if your family member needs assistance "assisted living", and is not able to navigate two stories and class times and showering and being INDEPENDENT, you might look somewhere else.

If facing the extremely difficult decision to put a loved one in a care center and are looking for a facility that shows compassion and understanding this is not the place for you. The staff constantly is untruthful, not helpful, and seem to lack the basic training of caring for those who can no longer care for themselves! Do not put someone you care about in the incapable care of this staff and facility!

I visited a family member at Truewood by Merrill in Keller and was impressed with the care given to her. She is so happy there and says the staff is so kind and caring. She loves the activities that are provided.Everyone I met was so friendly and staff so helpful leading me to her room! I am so grateful for the wonderful care she is getting in this community!

During the short stay of my father-in-law, we came by to check on him and found him to be completely out of sorts. We were unable to get a straight answer about if he had received medication or not. The conflicting information was never clarified. He fell several times the first week there and had not had any issues the previous three years living with us in a much less controlled environment. They have a faulty sensors in the room that is supposed to detect a fall that only ended up giving false alarms that led to them disrupting his sleep to see if he had fallen. We saw on our ring camera in his room that the staff came in and turned on his lights in the middle of the night to see if he fell and then proceeded to wake him up to see if he had fallen. He was laying on his pillow in the middle of his bed and completely covered up with his blanket. If he had fallen into bed I’m sure it was only because they kept him awake the previous two nights and forgot to give him his medicine for two days. Every time I visited I felt like the staff was more interested in doing the least amount of work possible instead of providing care. It takes a certain kind of person to care for others and there were very few of these kind of workers present. Seems like managements focus is on profitability instead of hiring workers with critical thinking skills and just plain old care and concern. Luckily we were able to get him moved to another facility that is certified to take care of dementia patients.