The reviews for Elderwood at Waverly present a strongly polarized picture: multiple families praise the facility for excellent rehabilitation services, compassionate staff, and successful short-term recoveries, while others report alarming incidents of neglect, poor clinical care, and management shortcomings. Positive reports emphasize well-trained therapists, a separate and effective rehab unit, and physical and occupational therapy that produced measurable recovery. Families who had positive experiences describe staff as kind, attentive, and family-like — noting strong emotional support during COVID, proactive protection measures, and assistance that made residents and families feel secure. Several reviewers specifically praised food items and the ability to customize meals, along with clean private rooms and engaging nursing and therapy teams.
Conversely, a substantial set of negative reports alleges severe failures in basic care and safety. These reviews include specific claims of multiple falls culminating in a hip fracture, prolonged periods where residents were left in soiled conditions, missed or late medication administration, and serious communication failures (no proactive updates about major clinical changes such as oxygen needs or death). Some accounts describe painful, non-empathetic therapy sessions and infections that led to tragic outcomes. The language used in several negative summaries — referencing understaffing, “body storage” metaphors, and management that did not intervene — indicates experiences of neglect and, in a few cases, perceived life-threatening lapses in care.
Staffing and communication emerge as recurring themes that help explain the mixed experiences. Many reviews single out specific employees and therapy teams as exemplary — calm under pressure, responsive, excellent at hands-on rehab, and effective at keeping families informed (including enabling Skype visits). Other reviews call out inconsistent staffing levels, unprofessional behavior, and the need for family members to step in to provide or ensure basic care. This suggests variability across shifts, units, or time periods: the same facility may provide outstanding rehabilitation and compassionate nursing under some circumstances but fail on basic safety or hygiene under others.
Safety and infection control during the COVID era are also inconsistently reported. Several families expressed confidence in the facility’s COVID protections and praised staff for going above and beyond to keep residents safe. However, other reviewers flagged concerns about safety protocols — including reports of expired COVID tests and daily pre-visit testing requirements that raised questions about testing accuracy and administrative oversight. Activity restrictions and visitor policies were noted as impacts of virus-related measures; these were described as necessary by some and overly stringent or inconsistently applied by others.
Dining and the physical environment likewise received mixed reviews. Some residents and family members enjoyed meals and specific dishes (black bean salad, split pea soup), appreciated customizable menus, and found rooms pleasant and private. In contrast, other reviews characterized the food as horrendous and the facility as dated, indicating significant variability in culinary quality and perhaps fluctuation in dining service performance. Several reviewers praised cleanliness and private apartments, while a subset described the overall experience as a “nightmare,” linking poor cleanliness to understaffing and poor oversight.
Management and administrative support are another area of contrast. Positive reviews mention professional leadership and calm response in crises. Negative reviews describe a lack of social work help, insufficient consultation, perceived prioritization of money over care, and specific personnel issues (e.g., dismissed employee, paternity-leave related conflict) that undermined confidence. Several reviewers recommended the rehab wing strongly, while others left after short stays citing no support or engagement from staff or administration.
Bottom line: Elderwood at Waverly appears capable of delivering excellent, patient-centered rehabilitation and displays pockets of highly compassionate, skilled staff and successful outcomes, particularly in the distinct rehab unit. However, there are multiple, serious reports of neglect, medication and hygiene failures, inconsistent communication, and safety/infection control concerns. These conflicting patterns suggest variability in care quality across units, shifts, or time periods. Prospective residents and families should arrange targeted questions and observations before committing: inquire about staffing ratios, fall-prevention protocols, medication administration checks, infection-control and testing policies, the existence and accessibility of social work/care coordination, the specific rehab team's structure, dining options, and how the facility communicates major clinical changes to families. A tour of the rehab wing, direct conversations with therapy staff, and checking recent inspection or complaint histories would help validate whether the positive attributes or the negative patterns are more current or relevant to a particular unit or level of care.
