Hearthstone Alzheimer's Care - Palisades

Pros

• The Esplanade at Palisades is described as a beautiful, warm, and welcoming place.
• Dasani is praised for explaining all the benefits the care and activities offer.
• The environment is described as clean, with polite and accommodating staff.
• Dahian, the Director of HHA, is noted as amazing and helpful to the residents.
• The new director's leadership is described as incredibly attentive and compassionate, setting the tone.
• The staff are said to go above and beyond to help residents feel welcomed and settled.
• The Esplanade is described as having lovely facilities and grounds, with a warm and friendly atmosphere.
• The dining and community atmosphere are described as homey, with residents and staff who are happy and involved.
• Many reviewers express gratitude and would recommend The Esplanade to others.

Cons

• The staff videotaped, chastised, and laughed at a distressed elderly man instead of offering dignity and empathy.
• They claimed to be equipped to handle Lewy Body Dementia, but they were not.
• There is nothing in the works regarding a memory care unit, which felt like false advertising.
• The facility is not equipped for patients with Lewy Body or other extreme forms of dementia.
• No one promptly notified the family or took responsibility after the patient fell and was left alone for hours.
• The aides were completely untrained to handle full care and publicly ridiculed residents on video.
• The care led to injuries, malnourishment, and setbacks for the patient, with no accountability.
• Medications were mismanaged for the first two months and hygiene appointments were missed; meals were late on several occasions.
• A resident was moved to a room due to bed bugs and left alone for hours, resulting in a fall and hospitalization.
• The grandmother's death was partly due to negligent care, and critical illness updates were not promptly communicated.

Review

This Palisades community is best suited for families seeking a warm, home-like memory-care environment where the emphasis is on personal connection, gentleness, and daily life that feels familiar. It works well for residents who are in the early to mid-stages of dementia and who benefit from a calm, welcoming setting, consistent staffing, and hands-on attention from caregivers who treat residents like family. The tone in many positive reports is that the environment is clean, visually inviting, and staffed by people who show genuine care in everyday interactions. For families prioritizing a house-like atmosphere, predictable routines, and sustained personal attention, this is a strong fit.

That said, several families should consider alternatives if the priority is specialized dementia care with proven capacity for more complex conditions. Reviews highlight significant caution for residents with Lewy Body dementia or other advanced, high-acuity needs, where the facility may lack the necessary medical rigor or dementia-specific programming. Prospective residents with pronounced behavioral challenges, frequent aggression, or complex medication regimens may find the level of support uneven, and the absence of a clearly defined, fully equipped memory-care unit becomes a consequential gap. Those who demand rigorous accountability and consistent, transparent communication from leadership should press for concrete assurances and current references before???

On the upside, the strongest positives center on warm, attentive staff and a sense of belonging. Families repeatedly praise the staff's kindness, the director-level leadership in practice, and the stable, years-long caregiving teams. The environment is described as welcoming, with a homey dining room, pleasant grounds, and a culture that makes residents feel comfortable and valued. For relatives who want to be actively involved, the facility appears to accommodate family participation and to support transitions, including hospice and end-of-life care with a respectful, family-centered approach. These elements - stability, warmth, and a focus on daily life - do meaningful work in offsetting some of the more routine discomforts of caregiving.

However, the other side of the ledger contains serious concerns that cannot be dismissed. Multiple reviews recount scenarios of mismanagement around medications and care planning, lapses in hygiene, and inconsistent routines that left family members uneasy about whether needs were being met promptly. There are accounts of staff behaving unprofessionally - videos taken during distress, humiliation, and a lack of accountability when problems arose. Instances of bed relocations, delayed notifications to families, and perceived indifference in crisis moments point to systemic gaps in training, supervision, and governance. The combination of these red flags undercuts the trust essential to dementia care and raises real questions about safety and dignity in care delivery.

In practical terms, families evaluating this community should probe four areas with current leadership or tour guides: how the memory-care program is structured and staffed, including staff-to-resident ratios and dementia-specific training; the facility's processes for medication management, incident reporting, and prompt family communication; the criteria used to determine room changes, alignment with resident dignity, and escalation pathways when concerns arise; and concrete examples of accountability - how mistakes are addressed, and what remediation or oversight exists to prevent recurrence. It is essential to request recent tour outcomes, current references, and, if possible, to visit with residents who have lived there through transitions to gauge consistency of care and tone.

Bottom-line guidance positions this Palisades community as a viable option for a family prioritizing a nurturing, homelike atmosphere and stable, compassionate staff - provided the resident's dementia level fits a well-supported, less medicalized model of care. The concerns raised in reviews - especially around medical management, safety, and accountability - are not minor. They demand rigorous verification: current caregiver training, concrete care plans, transparent communication, and a demonstrable track record of responsiveness when problems arise. If those assurances cannot be documented convincingly, or if the loved one requires higher-acuity dementia care with a clearly dedicated memory-care unit, it is prudent to widen the search and compare alternatives that offer stronger clinical safeguards and a tighter governance framework.

Parks

• Tallman Mountain State Park (0.5 miles)
• Piermont Pier (1.9 miles)
• Uniontown Playground (3.4 miles)
• Hart's Brook Park & Preserve (6.1 miles)
• Nyack Beach State Park (7.4 miles)
• Rockefeller State Park Preserve (8.1 miles)
• Riverdale Park (8.2 miles)

Restaurants

• The 9W Market (0.5 miles)
• The Filling Station (0.5 miles)
• Hudson Social (2.3 miles)
• Harvest on Hudson (2.3 miles)
• Brrzaar (3.2 miles)
• Goosefeather (4.3 miles)
• Barley On The Hudson (5.2 miles)

Pharmacies

• Walgreens (1 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (1.2 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (2.7 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (4.3 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (4.7 miles)
• Walgreens (5.4 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (5.5 miles)

Transportation

• Metro North - Dobbs Ferry Train Station (2.3 miles)
• Metro North - Tarrytown Train Station (5.3 miles)
• Metro North - Hartsdale Train Station (6.6 miles)
• Metro North - Bronxville Train Station (6.9 miles)
• Metro North - Riverdale Station (7.6 miles)
• Bus Stop (8.3 miles)
• Metro North - Mt Vernon East Train Station (8.5 miles)

Physicians

• Northeast Orthopedics & Sports Medicine - Orangeburg (2.6 miles)
• Orangetown Pediatric Associates (2.7 miles)
• Babra Saeed (4 miles)
• Medical Arts Building (5 miles)
• Kayal Orthopedic - Westwood (5.2 miles)
• Park Medical Group PA (5.9 miles)
• ENT and Allergy Associates (6.1 miles)

Cafes

• Art Cafe Of Nyack (5.1 miles)
• Boxer Donut & Espresso Bar (5.4 miles)
• Coffee Labs Roasters (5.5 miles)
• Starbucks (5.5 miles)
• Starbucks (6.2 miles)
• Starbucks (6.4 miles)
• Starbucks (6.4 miles)

Hospitals

• Hackensack Meridian Health Pascack Valley Medical Center (5.2 miles)
• White Plains Hospital (8 miles)

Theaters

• Alamo Drafthouse Yonkers (5.6 miles)
• AMC Palisades 21 (6 miles)
• Nanuet STM 12 & RPX (7.4 miles)

Places of Worship

• Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (6.1 miles)
• The Riverdale Minyan (8.5 miles)