BROOKDALE UNION HILLS

Brookdale Union Hills is a memory care community on West Union Hills Drive in Peoria, Arizona, operated by Brookdale Senior Living. The Arizona Department of Health Services licenses it as an assisted living center (license AL6356C) with capacity for 56 residents. Brookdale's own description of the community highlights three things: memory care offers gentle guidance, familiar routines, and daily opportunities for connection.

Strengths-based events and activities promote engagement and a sense of belonging, and help with meals and other daily living activities is available. A trained team is on site 24 hours a day to help during emergencies. Memory care at Brookdale communities is delivered in specially designed environments by associates trained to care for people living with cognitive changes, including Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Daily life is organized around routine. A predictable rhythm of meals, activities, and rest can help reduce confusion for people with memory loss, and staff assist with dressing, bathing, grooming, and other activities of daily living as each person's plan requires. Brookdale's Optimum Life program, which runs across its communities, aims to build purpose, connection, and joy into each day through activities matched to a resident's abilities.

A community devoted only to memory care can suit someone whose dementia has reached the point where a secure setting, consistent staff, and a structured day matter more than a wide menu of amenities. It may be less suited to a spouse without memory loss who wants to live alongside a partner, so couples should ask how that situation is handled. In Arizona, assisted living communities are licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

A licensed assisted living center serves eleven or more residents and may be approved to provide supervisory care, personal care, or directed care services, with directed care being the level for residents who can no longer direct their own care, as is common with dementia. Families can look up a community's license and inspection history on the state's AZ Care Check website before a visit, and reading recent inspection reports can show how a community has responded to any past findings.

Around the neighborhood, Abrazo Arrowhead Campus is about 3.5 miles away, and Banner Boswell Medical Center is about 4 miles away. Desert Amethyst Park is under a mile away, Fry's Food and Drug is a few blocks away for groceries, and Sun City Library is about 1.5 miles away. On a tour, ask how the team learns about a new resident's life story and routines, how staffing changes overnight, how families are kept informed after a fall or a change in condition, and how the community decides when a resident's needs exceed what it can provide.

Comparing communities takes time. Local Senior Advisor is a free service to families; if it would help to talk through Brookdale Union Hills alongside other choices in Peoria, reach out whenever it suits you.