Life Spire Assisted Living - Albuquerque NE

Olivia

Life Spire Assisted Living-Albuquerque NE was a beautiful, nice, and peaceful place. They were having an activity with the seniors in the activity room when we were there. The rooms were very nice and very well kept. They showed me a single bedroom. It's private and had a full walk-in bath and walk-in closet. We can bring our own furniture or use their furniture. The staff who toured us around was very, very nice and very accommodating. I just called him this morning and he took us right away and said that they have a room available. All the food is cooked on the premises. They don't use pre-cooked food. The place is new so the floors were very clean and very nice. They had gardens and big fountains outside where you could just sit up there and feel the peace. They had umbrellas, flowers, and pots with gardening food.

Ron

We went to see Life Spire Assisted Living - Albuquerque NE. Initially, we were thinking my mom needed assisted living but the more we looked around, we realized she was going to have a level of memory care. They had to offer that because of her condition. It was nice but the level of care was just one nurse and I don't think it was going to work for someone who needs assistance throughout the night. We need something more responsive than what they had to offer. They showed us the whole facility and the staff seemed very nice, friendly, and energetic. Activities were going on too like games, cards, and crafts. They had a central meeting area for the residents. They only had one room at the time and that wasn't going to work for us. It's a small community, and it just didn't meet our needs.

Frank

Life Spire Assisted Living - Albuquerque NE was right in a residential neighborhood with the facility looking just like the houses around it, except that it's larger, but that was fine. The rooms were not large and it was pretty expensive. The director toured us and took us by the kitchen area and we were able to say hello to the cook, and so she did a good job. They have the standard amenities, too, like a place where people can get together and play games.

Michelle

Life Spire Assisted Living - Albuquerque NE was very elegant and spacious. It had more courtyards and things like that than the other facility. It had the same positives that I had about the other, but because it's a newer facility, it was a little bit more. It has fives across the board. Chris, the marketing person, for Life Spire, was the one who took me on the tour, and he's delightful, warm, and friendly. One of the things that he shared with me that meant a lot to me is that Life Spire is owned by a local couple. It's a New Mexico-born business and that the owners are very hands-on and pitch in when they need to pitch in and that kind of thing. The staff was nice. I met Priscila, the manager, and she's very warm, friendly, and happy to answer questions if I had them. I was just overall impressed with both properties. The only downside for me is that Oakland is farther away from my home here in Albuquerque. That would make the first one a little more attractive to me as far as a place for my mom because I would be closer, but Oakland was absolutely beautiful. I didn't see any of the activities. I did see a calendar, but I didn't pay that much attention to what was on it. They appeared to have a lot of activities scheduled for their residents. There were lots of places for residents to be outside enjoying the sunshine and to be able to walk around. The way they schedule everything for their residents seems to be very logical and in care of their residents.

Jeff

I had an in-person tour of Life Spire Assisted Living - Albuquerque NE. It's very nicely appointed. I guess they have 30 beds, 15 on a side, and it seemed like it's professionally organized. All residents are supervised and served on a 24/7 basis. The tour was good. The rooms themselves were very unimpressive; they're very, very small. The affordable ones you had to actually share a bathroom with somebody, so my relative was not at all interested in that. There wasn't much variety of rooms. They were actually just very, very bare, very simple, and very small. They had a TV, but other than that, they were not particularly impressive. I interacted with one of the parent company marketing people, a sales representative type person. He was very good, very helpful, and accommodating. I did very briefly meet some of the staff, and they were fine. They had a range of amenities and activities, not the same range as for independent living of course. They were also qualified and certified to work with memory loss issues, so much more oriented toward folks that were having more difficulty managing themselves. They do have a chef, and they do very carefully crafted menus. It seemed like they were very conscious about that.

CA

My wife was only there at Life Spire Assisted Living-Albuquerque NE for a month for respite care. They did a great job. It's a very good place, and they've got very good people. Her room was very nice. It had a bathroom, a closet, and a bedroom area. It's very clean. It's a newer place, so it's more modern and updated. She said the food was good. They had quite a few activities. They had a little plastic bowling area and they had games like throwing the ball around, and yoga. The facility was very nice. She needed some help for a little while and I didn't know how long she should be there, but with the doctors she had and the nurses, they got her through real quick. Within a month, she was ready to come home, so that was nice.

Shirley

I went to Life Spire on Oakland. They were really nice. They're a smaller facility. They only have around forty residents. What I didn't like about that was it's almost all women. Out of all those people, they were mostly women, and I wanted dad to have some male friends. I know it's nothing they can control, but that was just something that stuck out to me. The rooms were bigger over there. It's probably a more recently built facility. It's beautiful, and it looked like a cruise-ship type of thing, but it was not as convenient location-wise, it's a little more expensive, and the rooms didn't have a kitchenette. They just had the room, a bathroom, and a closet. It's a pretty facility and relatively new. I wasn't there during meal hours. There were very few residents about, so I didn't really get to see them. I didn't really get a good feeling for Life Spire. There weren't too many people visiting each other; it's more like each person had their room and they pretty much stayed there. Of course, I wasn't there during a mealtime, so it could be completely different during when everybody's out and about. I just saw a couple of people walking the hallways like they were going somewhere, but I didn't really see anybody doing anything. The guy who took me on the tour was really nice and very energetic, and he had a very bubbly personality. He was able to answer all my questions, but he's the only one I had any interactions with. The facilities looked rather limited. The dining room was used for activities, and they also had a movie night where they eat popcorn. I was only there for one visit, and I didn't see anything going on.

Anonymous

We visited Life Spire. The lady I spoke to was not there, so somebody else walked us around. The rooms were pretty small, but the facility looked clean. It looked like that the residents that were in the dining room were in good condition and happy. The rooms were small but nice. They took me outside to a patio. They had an activity director who seemed to have a lot of energy. However, the price that they listed did not include care, just the room. Everything was piece-mealed.