Wauconda Care

My mom was a resident of Wauconda Care for about three weeks to receive rehabilitation from a severe brain injury that she had received.
When I was looking for facilities to take my mom to for a «step-​down» (meaning she was in a far more advanced rehab facility for much more aggressive rehab, and when she was done with that they required her to go to a lesser care facility for more rehab before she could go home) program, Wauconda Care was one of the places on my list to visit.
When you drive up to Wauconda Care, the overall look of the outside is very deceiving. I actually wasn’t going to go inside because it looked like a nursing home, and I knew that wasn’t going to be right for my mom. But reluctantly, I went inside, and I was surprised by the inside. At the time they were going through a remodel so half of the building was new and modern, and the other half was more nursing home-​esque. I took a tour of the facility with one of the directors of the center, and she was nice and offered me a lot of detailed information about the care they could give my mom. They had a nice big community cafeteria and four (from what I remember it was four) different «arms» in the building that all offer specific care to a persons needs.
After the tour, I left and decided that this place would be a good fit for my mom’s next leg of recovery. They had space available, so I drove her there within a couple days of my initial visit and she became a short term resident.
My mom was given a room in the remodeled part of the facility and a bedridden roommate and a shared bathroom with that roommate. She had a nice therapeutic bed and her own tv, which I suppose is common place in a facility like this.
Here’s where I start to have a problem. My mom had two different doctors while she was there– but the only one that I met was Dr. Kasturi. This woman seems to be a great doctor, don’t get me wrong, but she offered so many false promises to my mom, and it was incredibly disheartening for her and very, VERY frustrating for me to see this happen. I am not going to comment further about this, but my advice is that this doctor actually acts on the promises she makes to her patients instead of giving them false hopes.
My next issue is with theft. My mom had minimal personal belongings while she was a resident at Wauconda because I suspected that theft might happen. Well, my mom asked that I bring her some face cream because her skin was dry, so I went and bought her some $ 20 face cream from Walmart and brought it over to her that same night. My mom used it and set it on the bathroom sink so she could use it in the morning too. Well, when I came to visit my mom in the morning, the face cream was gone– no where to be found. So I asked my mom about it and she said that she left it on the bathroom sink last night. Well, I approached the cleaning staff and they denied seeing any creams like that. Sure, you didn’t. A brand new bottle of «expensive» face cream just disappears, huh? We never found the face cream nor was it returned to my mom. So my advice to you is don’t bring anything valuable into this place, because you’ll probably lose it due to employee theft.
On to some positives– my mom really enjoyed the food that was made in the kitchen. They always came to my mom with a menu of things that she could pick from for her meals, and they always made her food according to her requests. Also, she could eat in her room if she wanted instead of in the dining room.
Also, the therapy that she received was right on target. The therapy staff was always very courteous of my mom, but they wouldn’t let her skip therapy because she just didn’t want to do it.
The exit team (for lack of a better term), helped me find care for my mom when she left the facility. They coordinated a nurse, occupational, physical, and speech therapy to come to my mom’s house a few days a week, which was very helpful for me since I live out of state.
The overall experience at Wauconda Care was positive, but they lose two stars because of the doctors improper patient care and the theft my mom experienced. Aside from those two things, this facility gave my mom great care.