I really liked the independent (assisted and memory care also) living place where we took my dad. I would have lived there myself. He had a very nice apartment on the third floor with a picture window looking straight at Mt Hood. I loved that they had a restaurant where you could eat at any time you pleased and one of us generally always ate dinner with him and the food was very good. If it wasn't we would have taken him out because he was kind of a food snob. It was a beautiful building and all the employees were kind to him and to us. As he needed more care I hired a companion for the mornings and one of us kids spent the evening with him. We were able to hold that together for about a year and a half. I finally became aware that he was wandering outside in the middle of the night and we needed to move him into memory care. That broke our hearts because we so loved the set up we had. I enjoyed visiting him in that nice apartment so much more than our old family home. It was perfect and much nicer for him than had one of us been able to only give him one room in our homes.
When we moved him to memory care it was in an adult foster home five minutes down the street from me. It was with a wonderful family with young kids. There were only four other residents. The food was all made from scratch. They have a garden with chickens. They let him keep his beloved cat. He and another resident became fast friends and spent each day in each others company. Some days it seemed like I was intruding and that was OK. It relieved the guilt that I should be there all the time to keep him company. I know we were very very lucky. I'm glad he could afford it and I'm glad what we wanted for him was available. Should I ever find myself in the same situation I would be happy with any part of his set up. There was never a feeling of being in a warehouse.