Villa at Riverstone

I have been the Director of Healthcare at Autumn Leaves Riverstone for close to a year and a half now. I am so blessed to be apart of this team. One of the greatest passions I have is making a positive difference in people's lives. Here at Riverstone I am able to do that on a daily basis. I love my job, my resident's, and each of their family members. I have found myself with so many people I consider my own family in the short time I have been here and I optimistically look towards the future for that number to grow. If you read this and need help for a loved one or even yourself, you are not alone and I am here to help you.

It has been my pleasure to work for Autumn Leaves since 2007. Over the years I've had the honor of taking care of many residents and their families. My time at Riverstone in the past year has been great with a lot of positive changes.

My father was a resident at Autumn Leaves Riverstone for almost two years. He died on March 4, 2019. He was a 91 year old, blind, WWII veteran with Alzheimers. The staff was very friendly and seemed to take an interest in my father when I was there, but often no one knew where he was or he was just sitting in a corner. After he died, I was assured a refund of the unused portion of the month of March. We paid over $5000 a month. After several months of runarounds, now it appears that they are filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This is so wrong! Not only am I having to deal with the grief of losing my father, but I am having to fight for his estate. I now refer to them as Autumn Thieves instead of Autumn Leaves! Research and find a good place for your loved ones. We thought we had found one, but evidently we were wrong!

I placed my wife, who had dementia, in this facility for one year. It is a pleasant facility and provides good basic care. One of my concerns was adjusting her diet to maximize it's effect in helping with her disease. As the facility's diet is set by a group in the corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, communication about proper diets was not made available to us. I based recommendations on my internet research, and worked with the kitchen staff to try and modify her diet. This was only somewhat successful.For the first two months, they paid close attention to her, making her feel a part of the group and providing friends for her, as well as activities. This was in large part thanks to the efforts of the regional director of sales who took an active interest in her well-being. However when this person was unable to spend time at this facility, the level of care fell off. Except for my frequent visits, I had the feeling that she felt abandoned. I would usually find her watching TV having no interaction with the other residents and only custodial attention from the caregivers. While I found that a couple of the caregivers had exceptional attitudes of caring, their assigned duties kept them too busy to spend much time with my wife.I was able to spend most dinners and evenings with her. I took particular interest in her diet and medications, wanting to do the best to try to help with her disease. This, evidently, seemed to annoy the supervising personnel who came to resist my requests for information and modifications.I suspect this led to an incident that I suspect was instigated by the supervising nurse with whom I had a bad relationship. I suspect that she gave instructions to my wife's caregiver to try to find an excuse to accuse me of trying to cause injury to my wife who had very limited means of communication. Of course, the police are trained to accept all accusations, so that the accused is forced to prove his innocence of bogus charges. This cost me over $35,000 in legal fees and much consternation as I did my best to try and care for and keep my wife alive. After several months of court appearances, the judge finally dismissed the charges as not credible.Shortly after the incident, both the caregiver and the supervisory nurse were no longer working at this facility. Hopefully, this will demonstrate to others that such conspiracies are not in keeping with a professed goal of providing a wholesome family atmosphere where the good of the resident is of primary concern. However, none of them ever confessed to the Fort Bend County authorities.With some good home care provided by Home Instead, she was able to share the love of her husband for almost another year before she passed from her disease.