Pricing ranges from
    $4,064 – 5,283/month

    Nelson's Golden Years

    137 Oklahoma Cemetary Rd, DuBois, PA, 15801
    3.7 · 3 reviews
    • Assisted living
    • Memory care
    AnonymousLoved one of resident
    1.0

    Caring staff, but deadly lapses

    I’m torn: the home can be wonderful — friendly, resident-focused staff, lively activities and a family-like atmosphere that sometimes surpassed my expectations — but I experienced alarming care failures. Staff missed monitoring (fever not checked), provided insufficient lifting assistance, and poor patient monitoring led to pneumonia and the death of my relative. I liked the engaged, attentive caregivers, but until safety and monitoring improve I cannot recommend this place.

    Pricing

    $4,064+/moSemi-privateAssisted Living
    $4,876+/mo1 BedroomAssisted Living
    $5,283+/moStudioAssisted Living

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    Amenities

    Healthcare services

    • Activities of daily living assistance
    • Assistance with bathing
    • Assistance with dressing
    • Assistance with transfers
    • Medication management
    • Mental wellness program

    Healthcare staffing

    • 12-16 hour nursing
    • 24-hour call system
    • 24-hour supervision

    Meals and dining

    • Diabetes diet
    • Meal preparation and service
    • Restaurant-style dining
    • Special dietary restrictions

    Room

    • Air-conditioning
    • Cable
    • Fully furnished
    • Housekeeping and linen services
    • Kitchenettes
    • Private bathrooms
    • Telephone
    • Wifi

    Transportation

    • Community operated transportation
    • Transportation arrangement
    • Transportation arrangement (non-medical)

    Common areas

    • Beauty salon
    • Computer center
    • Dining room
    • Fitness room
    • Gaming room
    • Garden
    • Outdoor space
    • Small library
    • Wellness center

    Community services

    • Concierge services
    • Fitness programs
    • Move-in coordination

    Activities

    • Community-sponsored activities
    • Planned day trips
    • Resident-run activities
    • Scheduled daily activities

    3.67 · 3 reviews

    Overall rating

    1. 5
    2. 4
    3. 3
    4. 2
    5. 1
    • Care

      3.7
    • Staff

      3.7
    • Meals

      3.7
    • Amenities

      3.7
    • Value

      3.7

    Pros

    • Friendly staff
    • Resident-focused care
    • Family-like environment
    • Enjoyable activities (bingo, parties)
    • Resident happiness
    • High staff job satisfaction
    • Attentive staff
    • Staff know residents' locations
    • Staff actively engage residents in activities
    • Caring staff

    Cons

    • Neglectful staff
    • Care neglect
    • Patient monitoring failures
    • Failure to lift a patient
    • Insufficient lifting assistance
    • Vital signs/fever not checked
    • Pneumonia complications linked to care
    • Death of a relative associated with care
    • Frightening environment

    Summary review

    Overall sentiment across the provided review summaries is mixed and polarized: several reviews highlight a warm, engaged, and resident-centered atmosphere, while other reviews raise severe safety and care-quality concerns. The dominant positive themes focus on social engagement and staff demeanor—residents are described as happy, activities like bingo and parties are enjoyed, and many reviewers emphasize that staff are friendly, caring, and attentive. Conversely, the negative themes are concentrated on critical lapses in clinical care and monitoring, including failure to assist with lifting, failure to check vital signs such as fever, resulting complications (pneumonia), and at least one death a reviewer attributes to deficiencies in care. The juxtaposition of strong social/supportive attributes with serious clinical lapses forms the central tension in these summaries.

    Care quality: The reviews present a bifurcated picture. On the positive side, staff are described as resident-focused and surpassing expectations in terms of attention and engagement. On the negative side, multiple summaries allege neglectful behavior and concrete failures in patient monitoring and physical assistance. Specific operational failures cited include not providing adequate lifting assistance and not checking a resident's temperature, with downstream medical consequences (pneumonia) and an alleged death. These are not minor complaints about amenities; they are serious safety-related allegations that suggest inconsistent implementation of clinical protocols and monitoring practices.

    Staff, morale, and interpersonal environment: A strong, recurring positive thread is staff warmth and resident engagement. Words like friendly, caring, family-like, and attentive appear repeatedly. High job satisfaction among staff is also noted, which can correlate with better interpersonal care and activity programming. Several reviewers emphasize that staff know where residents are and actively involve them in activities, which supports a perception of a socially positive, well-supervised community in nonclinical ways. However, this favorable interpersonal experience appears to coexist with incidents where staff did not provide necessary clinical care or physical assistance, indicating variability in staff performance or training across shifts or individuals.

    Activities and social life: The facility is consistently praised for its programming. Specific activities called out include bingo and parties, and reviewers describe residents as happy and engaged. These points suggest the facility succeeds at providing meaningful social interaction, which is an important quality-of-life factor for many residents.

    Facilities, dining, and management: The provided reviews do not include direct comments about dining quality, specific facility amenities, staffing levels, or management responsiveness. Because those areas are not addressed in the summaries, they cannot be reliably evaluated here. The absence of commentary on management and policies limits the ability to determine whether the clinical lapses reported stem from systemic issues (e.g., understaffing, training gaps, poor oversight) or isolated incidents.

    Notable patterns and implications: The pattern emerging is one of inconsistency—strong social programming and warm staff interactions paired with troubling reports of neglect and clinical oversights. The severity of the negative reports (failed lifting assistance, unmonitored fever, pneumonia, and an alleged death) elevates these concerns from routine complaints to potential safety and regulatory issues. For prospective residents and families, the mixed signals suggest it would be prudent to investigate further: ask the facility about care protocols for monitoring vital signs, lifting and transfer assistance procedures, staff training and certification, incident reporting and investigation processes, and examples of how the facility addresses and learns from adverse events.

    In summary, Nelson's Golden Years appears to deliver a positive social environment with attentive, caring staff and engaging activities that contribute to resident happiness. At the same time, reviewers have reported serious care and safety failures that cannot be overlooked. These conflicting themes point to variability in care delivery; the facility may offer excellent interpersonal and activity-based experiences but also appears to have lapses in clinical care and resident monitoring that require clarification and remediation. When evaluating this facility, families should weigh the strong social and emotional benefits against the documented safety concerns and seek concrete assurances and evidence of corrective actions and robust clinical oversight.

    Location

    Map showing location of Nelson's Golden Years

    About Nelson's Golden Years

    Nelson's Golden Years in DuBois, PA, is part of the DuBois Continuum of Care Community and sits in the business directory as both a nursing home and an assisted living facility, calling itself a Personal Care Home with 60 licensed beds. The place helps seniors who need around-the-clock support while wanting to keep some independence, and they've made sure the rooms have private bathrooms, plus there are private rooms and couple's suites. For those looking to stay busy and social, there's a media and activities room, a dining room, and outdoor space for fresh air, and they try to keep the mind and body active with daily and structured activities, special events like holiday parties, and spa treatments from time to time.

    Nelson's Golden Years has care services that cover a lot, including permanent residential care, assisted living, adult day services, respite care, memory care, and post-surgical stays, with options for hospice, skilled nursing, home health care (Medicare-Certified), and home care for non-medical needs, all under a mission to give compassionate and personalized care that keeps each resident's dignity and independence in mind. The staff also offers care management services, and you'll find food programs (CACFP), meal prep and dining, laundry and household help, a beauty salon, plus cable and Wi-Fi throughout, which make daily life more comfortable. Everything runs with systems like Electronic Visit Verification and Customer Relationship Management to keep track and keep families involved with family engagement services.

    The Senior Care Hub and other special programs focus on care and support that fit each person, and there are transportation services when needed. Residents have supportive nursing help available any time of day, and the place is licensed by the state to operate, though Medicare for care is only accepted if there's a proper certification. The management at Nelson's Golden Years wants to give choices for seniors to make their own lifestyle with opportunities, unique service names and features, and a focus on fostering comfort and well-being for both the residents and their families. You'll find the facility open Monday to Saturday, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

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