We've had two loved ones residing at McLean since 2022. After having visited and toured numerous…read morefacilities, McLean stood out as a longstanding leader in the continued assistive eldercare, ranging from independent living, physical recovery care, to stepped up memory care. Beginning in the 1971 and taking on the cherished philanthropist's name McLean started as fleet ship of high quality edler-care and still tops the charts to this day. The staff throughout the ranks are impeccable, caring, willing to accommodate, communicate, and open to reasonable suggestions from family members. Speaking of family, each and every family member is welcomed and allowed to participate in many of the facilities activities, which is very up-lifting for all residents especially your own loved ones. I could go on & on, but please trust McLean is a one of kind and their master plan continues upgrade and to expand to provide even greater care for our growing and aging community.

home hospice was a complete nightmare. the business knows the details. our mother had anything…read moreother than a peaceful passing. most of the staff we worked with were indifferent and inappropriate. i can't recommend using this company for home hospice.

Let me start off by saying that I've been a patient in a few other nursing homes, so I'd like to…read morethink I'm pretty familiar with typical nursing home standards. I'm also quite a bit younger than your typical elderly nursing home patient. First off, this is the first facility I've encountered with a freakin CONCIERGE! She was absolutely incredible and I found the time spent talking to her to be a highlight of my experience. She also brought cookies! With that said, while they aren't perfect, and a nursing home isn't a vacation destination or resort, I found that my month long stay at Autumn Lake was much better than I'd expect after reading other reviews. I found it to be a much better than average nursing home experience. I wholeheartedly recommend Autumn Lake to anyone looking for a place for themselves or a loved one and would prefer to stay here again if I should need to. I'll break my review down into a few categories that I feel are most important: STAFF: I find that one of the most important aspects of a well run nursing home are a staff that genuinely cares for their patients and tries their absolute best to attend to their needs. I found that from the Administrator and the APRNs on down to the nurses aides & cleaning people as well as everyone in between, that is most certainly the case with the overwhelming majority (like 95% or 19 out of 20) of the staff at Autumn Lake. With that said, much like every other nursing home that I have experienced, they are frequently, if not chronically a bit under staffed in terms of nurses and aides especially. But again, I feel like my needs were attended to much better than other nursing homes. I also found the staff to be very competent, thorough and then some across the board in most cases. FACILITY (building & room quality and cleanliness) While I'm sure there are fancier places in Fairfield County etc, I don't believe I've seen a facility with nicer rooms than Autumn Lake. I'll include a photo so you can make your own judgment. In my opinion, the rooms are gorgeous as well as VERY spacious compared to others I've been in. The housekeeping staff came in daily to thoroughly clean & disinfect the bathroom and patient rooms, sweep & mop. Maintenance responded quickly to any needed repairs. My biggest gripe with the room is that I did find the bed to be a bit too hard & small for my liking despite it being an air type mattress that was fully adjustable. I also found the position of the handrails to be a minor annoyance. The fact that they were not adjustable also didn't make much sense to me. Beyond that, I have always found most nursing homes a bit too warm. In nursing home scenarios, I found that room temperature can either make or break a person's quality of life. Each room in the facility has it's own recently installed & individually controlled HVAC unit and the temperature was always kept exactly to my liking. To be perfectly honest, I found the AC better than what I have in my own home. I'm sure the heating works just as well. MISCELLANEOUS Overall, the laundry was picked up and dropped off like clockwork, they seem to have a varied array of activities available in the recreation dept and while I didn't have a ton of interaction with physical or occupational therapy, I thought they set themselves a part from other facilities in their individualized approach and found that they were willing to listen to my needs, goals and concerns much more than other facilities. It seems like they put in every effort to get their patients back to the level the patient hopes to achieve. FOOD I would say that while the biggest weakness in this facility is in the "Dietary" department due to not always getting the food I ordered...or not even having the opportunity to order from their daily list of choices. As far as the quality of the food goes, it is a nursing home, not a restaurant & nursing homes are not known for great food. All nursing homes serve food cooked in bulk quantities, with most likely a very small food budget, serving people that most likely don't feel well and also have a wide array of tastes and expectations. With that recipe, it is unreasonable to expect gourmet meals. With that said, I think it's fair to say that I found the food to be pretty decent about half the time (with some surprisingly good meals here and there) with the other half of the time being barely edible. Although I might be coming off a bit harsh on the food so let's be clear, I found the food, much like the facility, to be better than the food served at most nursing homes. A big bonus at this facility is the daily afternoon snacks of cookies, pudding or fruit delivered every afternoon & choice of sandwiches or cookie offered before bedtime. That about sums up my experience at Autumn Lake, so in closing, I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for a high quality facility to place your sick or aging loved one.

My 86-year-old mother came to the "short stay" wing here, following a second hip surgery. She could…read morebarely move. She desperately needed compassion and understanding. What she received instead was neglect and taunting abuse by many staff members, nurses and even the supervisors. To this day, she continues to have nightmares about the treatment that she received. I am a retired professional, the 24-hour home caregiver, and the legal health care representative for my mother, since 2008. Throughout her nine (9) surgeries and falls spanning that time, with many of those requiring a skilled nursing care stay, *never* has there been an experience like this. I was present every day here for the two months that she suffered, so I am a direct eyewitness. All of the incidents that she (and I, as her advocate) endured, I have thoroughly documented as they had happened--and am seriously considering reaching out to a higher authority, for some kind of guidance. These incidents are possibly illegal, and are definitely inhumane. Despite it all, high praise goes to: Doctor Maggie, who is a true angel; nurses Robin and Vanessa; physical therapists Katie and Courtney; and aides Rachel, Leanne, Cheryl, Vera, and Jovi. Without their support and hard work, my mother would have given up the will in this facility, and passed away. Generally speaking, my mother was ignored or put down, whenever she truly needed help...sometimes she would have to wait for hours.... *I* was dismissed or frowned upon, whenever I attempted to *get* her help... The automatic response was usually (and angrily) "when I am finished with all the other patients, I will go to your mother's room". This was said to me over and over. It was even said to me one Saturday, when my mother almost fell on the floor and I cried "emergency"!! However, most of the time, the help never came. There is clearly a severe staff shortage. Those few dedicated aides try to make up for all of the others, working their fingers to the bone....The food is slop, cold, and not fit for human consumption. Staff members admitted that much of the food is "recycled" from patient to patient, and even from floor to floor. We were not even aware that there was a "choice" for her meals, until almost two weeks in, and she seldom received what she ordered.....There is a potent burning and roasting smell, whose fumes continually came through my mother's closed window, day and night. Her throat suffered. These fumes had a habit of frequently setting off the fire alarms. An aide told that there is a florist next door which burns things, but no other staff ever mentions it.....There are rumors that wicca is practiced here among certain staff members and long-time patients. Somebody at Hartford Hospital who used to work here did mention a "tiger room". When my mother first arrived, the sheets were thrown off the bed onto the floor by a supervisor who seemed irritated that she was there. Her room did not have a phone. When I asked for one to be hooked up, the supervisor then tested a call --my caller ID said "scam likely"!....The following morning, the line had been "corrected" and it appeared normal. We were then informed by a social worker that my mother was to be moved to a different room. When asked why, one of the nurses said, "because her roommate complained about her." Why was my mother, who has suffered two broken hips and two knee replacements, being carted around the floor like a criminal? I noticed that many patients with severe memory loss are brought into the "short stay" wing. This should not be allowed, imo. One morning, I came in to find her crying. One of the night aides had tormented her. The aide scolded her and said, "You are a racist! Everybody on this floor is talking about you. You are the very last person that we serve, because you are such a racist". This set my mother back emotionally severely, in her recovery efforts. Upon reporting this, we were informed that this aide was simply "given some training". Afterwards, a "pain management" person declared that he was changing my mother's meds to something lesser, even though we had tried that before. I suggested using a less frequent dosage of her current medication, but he would not listen. I protested--and he declared that if I did not pipe down, he would "have me thrown out of the building." Exact words. Yes....I would have actually been forcibly removed, for simply exercising my legal right to advocate for my parent's needs. The last straw came when a different night aide had taunted my mother. Next morning, she was was crying hysterically. Upon reporting this, we were told that because she filed a second complaint, *two aides* needed to go into her room at all times...Clear retaliation. We were told, "it is to protect our staff, as well as the patient". A private call to the social worker, resulted in her bringing five top staff into the room, in intimidation. I was reprimanded for complaining too often.