Fairfield Village of Layton

My mother was a resident of Fairfield Village. She lived on the assisted living side of their complex. It got to the point where her health deteriorated to where she needed memory care. I had a steep learning curve to understand the disease of dementia and relied on the nursing staff of Fairfield Village to support me in making decisions for my mother's care. What I learned was that their staff only understood easy dementia patients and struggled to know what to do with my mother, who had dementia-related psychosis and was difficult to manage. They left a message on my phone at work and told me they were putting her on the next shuttle to Lakeview to become an inpatient. This put me in a panic because I was concerned about how this would frighten my mother. I scrambled to call them back and was transferred from one line to the next and ended up leaving work as fast as I could to address the problem. This happened on at least two occasions. They also said in order for her to stay there she needed to see a geriatric psychiatrist twice a month; it takes months to get an appointment. I explained I wanted to move her to memory care, but one of the head nurse's reply was "what good would that do?" They literally didn't know how to take care of my mother, even though they had a memory care unit at their own facility. I ended up making arrangements with another facility that specialized in dementia patients of all levels. Their staff was well educated in the needs of the dementia patient and knew right away how to help my mother from medication to how to approach her so she wasn't frightened. They didn't feel a geriatric psychiatrist was necessary and could manage her care right at their facility, which they did. The night before I moved her to this facility, which happened to be on Christmas day, a med tech at Fairfield, told my mother she was being moved to a psych ward. When I showed up the next day to move her, she was angry at me and crying, which made it all the more difficult to transfer her to her new home and it broke my heart. Time and time again, Fairfield made my experience stressful, and I felt I was constantly in crisis mode because they didn't know any other approach in dealing with her. It was clear they didn't want her living at their facility. Once I moved my mother to a new facility, she received top notch care and my stress level was manageable. She told me she was happy in her new home, something she never said about Fairfield. The move was the best decision I ever made for her care. If your parent is someone who quietly sits in a chair or wheelchair and doesn't need much in the way of higher level care, you might be happy at Fairfield. I wouldn't recommend their memory care unit if your parent is the least bit difficult, delusional, or paranoid because they don't know how to care for that level of patient.